And excuse my speaking my mind so bluntly.—
Come, my dearest friend, banish this stuff from your head,[1]
And get used to the thought of the casting-ladle.
What would you gain if I lodged you and boarded you?
Consider; I know you're a sensible man.
Well, you'd keep your memory; that's so far true;—
But the retrospect o'er recollection's domain
Would be, both for heart and for intellect,
What the Swedes call "Mighty poor sport"[2] indeed.
You have nothing either to howl or to smile about;
No cause for rejoicing nor yet for despair;
Nothing to make you feel hot or cold;
Only a sort of a something to fret over.
Peer.
It is written: It's never so easy to know
Where the shoe is tight that one isn't wearing.
The Lean One.
Very true; I have—praise be to so-and-so!—
No occasion for more than a single odd shoe.
But it's lucky we happened to speak of shoes;
It reminds me that I must be hurrying on;—
I'm after a roast that I hope will prove fat;
So I really mustn't stand gossiping here.—
Peer.
And may one inquire, then, what sort of sin-diet
The man has been fattened on?
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