Or supposing she listened--as gossips will -
At a door ajar, or a window agape,
To catch the sounds they allowed to escape.
Those sounds belonged to Depravity still!
The dark allusion, or bolder brag
Of the dexterous "dodge," and the lots of "swag,"
The plundered house--or the stolen nag -
The blazing rick, or the darker crime,
That quenched the spark before its time -
The wanton speech of the wife immoral,
The noise of drunken or deadly quarrel,
With savage menace, which threatened the life,
Till the heart seemed 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 punched into holes, like a "shocking bad hat"
That is only fit to be punched into wadding!

In short, wherever she turned the horn,
To the highly bred, or the lowly born,
The working man, who looked over the hedge,
Or the mother nursing her infant pledge.
The sober Quaker, averse to quarrels,
Or the Governess pacing the village through,
With her twelve Young Ladies, two and two,
Looking, as such young ladies do,
Trussed by Decorum and stuffed with morals -
Whether she listened to Hob or Bob,
Nob or Snob,