99. Righteous Anger

THE lanky hank of a she in the inn over there

Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer:

May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair,

And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.

That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will see

On virtue’s path, and a voice that would rasp the dead,

Came roaring and raging the minute she looked on me,

And threw me out of the house on the back of my head!

If I asked her master he’d give me a cask a day;

But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange!

May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may

The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.