The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/Cutting
CUTTING.
he world is not a perfect one,
All women are not wise or pretty,
All that are willing are not won—
More’s the pity—more’s the pity!
“Playing wall-flower’s rather flat,”
L’Allegro or Penseroso—
Not that women care for that—
But oh! they hate the slighting beau so!
Delia says my dancing’s bad—
She’s found it out since I have cut her;
She says wit I never had—
I said she “smelt of bread and butter.”
Mrs. Milton coldly bows—
I did not think her baby “cunning;”
Gertrude says I’ve little “nous”—
I tired of her atrocious punning.
Tom’s wife says my taste is vile—
I condemned her macarony;
Miss McLush, my flirt awhile,
Hates me—I preferred her crony;
Isabella, Sarah Anne,
Fat Estella, and one other,
Call me an immoral man—
I have cut their drinking brother.
Thus it is—be only civil—
Dance with stupid, short and tall—
Know no line ’twixt saint and devil—
Spend your wit on fools and all—
Simper with the milk-and-waters—
Suffer bores, and talk of caps—
Trot out people’s awkward daughters—
You may scandal ’scape—perhaps!
But prefer the wise and pretty—
Pass Reserve to dance with Wit—
Let the slight be e’er so petty,
Pride will never pardon it.
Woman never yet refused
Virtues to a seeming wooer—
Woman never yet abused
Him who had been civil to her.
H.