’Twas a wonderful Horn, to be but just! 
Nor meant to gather dust, must and rust;
So in half a jiffy, or less than that,
In her scarlet cloak and her steeple-hat,
Like old Dame Trot, but without her cat,
The Gossip was hunting all Tringham thorough,
As if she meant to canvass the borough,
  Trumpet in hand, or up to the cavity;—­
And, sure, had the horn been one of those
The wild Rhinoceros wears on his nose,
  It couldn’t have ripped up more depravity!

Depravity! mercy shield her ears! 
’Twas plain enough that her village peers
  In the ways of vice were no raw beginners;
For whenever she raised the tube to her drum
Such sounds were transmitted as only come
  From the very Brass Band of human sinners! 
Ribald jest and blasphemous curse
(Bunyan never vented worse),
With all those weeds, not flowers, of speech
Which the Seven Dialecticians teach;
Filthy Conjunctions, and Dissolute Nouns,
And Particles pick’d from the kennels of towns,
With Irregular Verbs for irregular jobs,
Chiefly active in rows and mobs,
Picking Possessive Pronouns’ fobs,
And Interjections as bad as a blight,
Or an Eastern blast, to the blood and the sight;
Fanciful phrases for crime and sin,
And smacking of vulgar lips where Gin,
Garlic, Tobacco, and offals go in—­
A jargon so truly adapted, in fact,
To each thievish, obscene, and ferocious act,
So fit for the brute with the human shape,
Savage Baboon, or libidinous Ape,
From their ugly mouths it will certainly come
Should they ever get weary of shamming dumb!

Alas! for the Voice of Virtue and Truth,
And the sweet little innocent prattle of Youth! 
The smallest urchin whose tongue could tang,
Shock’d the Dame with a volley of slang,
Fit for Fagin’s juvenile gang;
      While the charity chap,
      With his muffin cap,
  His crimson coat, and his badge so garish,
Playing at dumps, or pitch in the hole,
Cursed his eyes, limbs, body, and soul,
  As if they didn’t belong to the Parish!

’Twas awful to hear, as she went along,
The wicked words of the popular song;
  Or supposing she listen’d—­as gossips will—­
At a door ajar, or a window agape,
To catch the sounds they allow’d to escape,
  Those sounds belonged to Depravity still! 
The dark allusion, or bolder brag
Of the dexterous “dodge”, and the lots of “swag”,
The plunder’d house—­or the stolen nag—­
The blazing rick, or the darker crime,
That quench’d the spark before its time—­
The wanton speech of the wife immoral—­
The noise of drunken or deadly quarrel,
With savage menace, which threaten’d the life,
Till the heart seem’d merely a strop “for the knife”;
The human liver, no better than that
Which is sliced and thrown to an old woman’s cat;
  And the head, so useful for shaking and nodding,
To be punch’d into holes, like “a shocking bad hat,”
  That is only fit to be punch’d into wadding!