Sold her bed, and lay upon straw;

Sold her straw, and lay upon dirt;

Was n't she a good-for-naught?"

O Margery Daw! Mistress Margery Daw!

Not yours the sole lapse that the world ever

saw!

In precisely such willful gradation

I fear me religion and morals and law

Go down, step by step, to the dirt through

the straw,