He Who Holds Friendship With A Knave, Will Reputation Hardly Save; And Thus Upon Our Choice Of Friends Our Good Or Evil Name Depends. A Wrinkled Hag - Of Naughty Fame - Sat Hovering O'Er A Flickering Flame, Propped With Both Hands Upon Her Knees She Shook With Palsy And The Breeze. She Had Perhaps Seen Fourscore Years, And Backwards Said Her Daily Prayers; Her Troop Of Cats With Hunger Mewed, - Tabbies And Toms, A Numerous Brood. Teased With Their Murmuring, Out She Flew In Angry Passion: "Hence, Ye Crew! - What Made Me Take To Keeping Cats? Ye Are As Bad As Bawling Brats: With Brats I Might Perhaps Have Grown Rich; I Never Had Been Thought A Known Witch. Boys Pester Me, And Strive To Awe - Across My Path They Place A Straw; They Nail The Horse-Shoe, Hide The Broom-Stick, Put Pins, And Every Sort Of Trick." "Dame," Said A Tabby, "Cease Your Prate, Enough To Break A Pussy'S Pate. What Is Our Lot Beneath Your Roof? Within, Starvation; Out, Reproof: Elsewhere We Had Been Honest Mousers, And Slept, By, Fireside Carousers. Here We Are Imps Who Serve A Hag, And Yonder Broom-Stick'S Thought Your Nag; Boys Hunt Us With A Doom Condign, To Take One Life Out Of Our Nine."