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My father frowned rebuke ; his brother said,
" The child is still so young, Cadwallader ;
When Agnes was that age I humoured her.
Come hither, Elin, I will show you here
The wonders that lie hidden in the world
Of infusoria."
So through his glass
I looked, and saw a teeming mass of life,
A seething, writhing, crawling, ashy life,
And cried, " I do not like our world at all,
It is so ghastly ugly underneath."

The savants banished me, and, nothing loth,
I fled to where my cousins were at work —
We all did work, we Prynnes, being sad and poor.
Sweet Agnes wove a silver web of song,
And Mark, her cousin and mine, drove on a pen
That like a thirsty bird drank up the ink.
While I — I taught a most majestic cat
That claws were made for sheathing, not to scratch,
Until the bright-eyed mice came boldly forth,
And puss was useless, being civilized.