THE DITTY OF THE DAGGER.
[A writer on Fashion says, "The latest fad is the wearing of large daggers in the hair, which renders a lady quite dangerous to her neighbours.">[
Ethelinda hath a dagger; Irving gave it; calmly there,
As the fashion is, she sticks it in her coronal of hair.
It looks very like the dagger 'bout which Macbeth told such fibs,
That cold steel which tickled Duncan underneath his royal ribs.
Whomsoever she approaches, that three-cornered dagger prods,
And a hecatomb of corpses follows when her head she nods.
Kate and Margaret were wounded as if they'd been to the wars,
Hilda too and Olga owe her very aggravating scars.
Ben and Ted have both been prodded, and unhappy Lionello,
Looks as if he'd been engaging in a terrible duello.
If the fashion thus continues of stilettos worn like this,
Men must case their heads in helmets, or ne'er go near girls, I wis.
Nathless, were I Ethelinda's mother, I would say, "Beware!
If you must keep such a dagger, leave it upstairs—with your hair."
Ethelinda fiercely would repel the base insinuation,
But the hint might save her neighbours any further laceration.