And many a view
Of his coat of blue,
All studded with buttons gilt, spangled and new,
The dear lady took
Half askance from her book,
As she modestly sat in the opposite nook.
Familiarly he
And modestly she
Talked nonsense and sense so strangely commingled,
That the dear lady's heart was delighted and tingled.
A man of sobriety
Renown and variety
It could not be wrong to enjoy his society:
O was it a sin
For him to "drop in,"
And sometimes to pat her in sport on the chin?
Dear Ladies, beware;
Dear Ladies, take care--
How you play with a lion asleep in his lair:
"Mere trifling flirtations"--these arts you employ?
Flirtations once led to the siege of old Troy;
And a woman was in
For the sorrow and sin
And slaughter that fell when the Greeks tumbled in;
Nor is there a doubt, my dears, under the sun,
But they've led to the sack of more cities than one.
I would we were all
As pure as Saint Paul
That we touched not the goblet whose lees are but gall;
But if so we must know where a flirtation leads;
Beware of the fair and look out for our heads.
Remember the odious,
Frail woman, Herodias
Sent old Baptist John to a place incommodious,
And prevailed on her husband to cut off his head
For an indiscreet thing the old Nazarite said.
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