Classic Poem

Old Solomon hinted, and he ought to know,
That a woman of quarrelsome mind,
Like the dropping one hears when the skies overflow,
Never ceases, no matter how weary you grow,
And is harder to squelch than the wind.

There once was a woman who talked, talked, talked,
And she was a serious ill;
For, whether she rode or whether she walked,
She couldn't be stopped, and she wouldn't be balked;
She really never was still.

At morning, at noon, and all through the day,
She kept up her horrible din;
She chattered and scolded and gossiped away,
And talked even when she had nothing to say —
But that's not an uncommon sin.

Her husband, of all men, had most cause to weep
(She had one, I'm sorry to tell),
For all through the night she would chattering keep,
Kind angels defend us! she talked in her sleep,
And his bed was a foretaste of hell.

But all earthly doings must finally cease;
Time's prowess were vainly denied;
So this woman's tongue did at last find release,
For she lay down one night and for once held her peace —
'Twas the night that she lay down and died.

And now we are come to a strange anecdote,
But the truth must be told, come what may;
She chanced to be talking when Death seized her throat,
And though she ne'er afterward uttered a note,
Her jaw still kept wagging away.

They tied close her mouth with a napkin and strap,
But such force had the muscles acquired
That her jaws flew apart with a forcible snap,
Then together again like the jaws of a trap,
And then worked as though ne'er to be tired.

Years after, three doctors this strange story knew,
And agreed that the bones must arise
(A decision that doctors are pained to come to,
But if their devotion to science is true,
Their feelings they oft sacrifice).

So they called upon madam, and found her within,
But the sight brought their blood to a chill,
For her face upward leered with a skeleton grin,
And, most horrid of all, may I never more sin
If the jaw was not working on still!

So the doctors agreed, and I think were not wrong,
As soon as their heads became level,
That the will of a woman is wonderful strong,
And works over spaces and intervals long,
And defies even Death and the Devil!