And men now will laugh and women must smile
At this very apt joke of the Duke of Argyll.
These fishes, he said, iridescent but limp
Seem’d all at first sight to be able to sail,
But examined had not e’en so much as the shrimp
The power of propelling themselves by the tail;
They neither had skeletons, nerve, nor backbone,
Were nothing but jelly, no will of their own,
So women must scoff at, and men will deride
These structureless creatures adrift in the tide.