Page:Tea, a poem.pdf/6

6 And serve up a friend, a they serve up a toast, Some gentle faux pas, or some female mistake, Is like sweetmeat delicious, or relished as cake; A bit of broad scandle is like a dry crust It would stick in the throat, so the butter it first With a little affected good nature, and cry "No body regrets the thing deeper than I." Our young ladies nibble a good name in play As for pastime they nibble a biscut away While with shrugs and surmises the toothless old dame, As she mumbles a crust she will mumble a name. And as the fell sisters astonished the Scot In predicting of banquo's descendants the lot, Making shadows of kings, amid flashes o light To appear in array and to frown in his sight, So they conjure up spectres all hideous in hue Which as shades of their neighbours, are pass'd in review.