And talking just for show,
For that is deleterious
  To fellowship, and so
I oft with her would chatter,
  Just as I felt inclined,
Of any little matter
  I chanced to call to mind. 
Alas! on one ill-fated day,
I heard an angry neighbor say,
’Don’t tell John Jones of your affairs,
  Don’t tell him for your life,
Without you wish the world to know,
  For he will tell his wife.’ 
‘For he will tell his wife’ did ring
  All day through heart and brain;
In sleep a nightmare stole his voice,
  And shouted it again. 
I spent whole days in meditating
  How I should break the spell,
Which made my wife keep prating
  Of things she shouldn’t tell. 
Some awful crime I’ll improvise,
  Which I’ll to her confide,
Upon the instant home I rushed,
  My hands in blood were dyed. 
’Now, Catharine, by your love for me,
  My secret closely hide.’ 
Her quiet tongue, for full three days,
  The secret kept so well,
I almost grew to hope that she
  This secret wouldn’t tell. 
Alas! upon the following day
  She had revealed it, for I found
Some surly men with warrants arm’d
  Were slyly lurking round. 
They took me to the county jail
  My tristful Kate pursuing,
And all the way she sobb’d and cried
  ‘Oh! what have I been doing?’
Before the judge I was arraigned,
  Who sternly frowning gazed on me,
And by his clerk straightway inquired,
  What was the felon’s plea. 
May’t please your honor, I exclaim’d
  This case you may dismiss—­
Now hearken all assembled here,
  My whole defence is this: 
I killed a dog—­a thievish wretch—­
  His body may be found,
Beneath an apple tree of mine,
  A few feet under ground,
This simple plot I laid in hope
  To cure my tattling wife;
I find, alas! that she must talk,
  Though talking risk my life. 
So from her presence then I fled,
In spite of all the tears she shed,
And since, a wand’ring life I’ve led,
And told the tale where’er I sped.”

FORTY YEARS AFTER.

For twenty guests the feast is laid
  With luscious wines and viands rare,
And perfumes such as might persuade
  The very gods to revel there.

A youthful company gathered here,
  Just two score years ago to-day,
Agreed to meet once ev’ry year
  Until the last one passed away.

And when the group might fewer grow
  The vacant chairs should still be placed
Around the board whereon should glow
  The glories of the earliest feast.

One guest was there, with sunken eye
  And mem’ry busy with the past—­
Could he have chosen the time to die,
  Some earlier feast had been his last.

“But thrice we met” the old man said,
  But thrice in youthful joy and pride,
When all for whom this board was spread
  Were seated gaily at my side.