(whenever she should become old), and could patiently submit to the sharper than a serpent's thanks of having a toothless child generally. But to be a mother-in-law! No, no; that was a plane of degradation to which she positively would not descend. So she employed me to cut her throat. It was the toughest throat I ever cut in all my life.
THE LEGEND OF IMMORTAL TRUTH.
A bear, having spread him a notable feast, Invited a famishing fox to the place. 'I've killed me,' quoth he, 'an edible beast As ever distended the girdle of priest With 'spread of religion,' or 'inward grace.' To my den I conveyed her, I bled her and flayed her, I hung up her skin to dry; Then laid her naked, to keep her cool, On a slab of ice from the frozen pool; And there we will eat her-you and I.' The fox accepts, and away they walk, Beguiling the time with courteous talk. You'd ne'er have suspected, to see them smile, The bear was thinking, the blessed while, How, when his guest should be off his guard, With feasting hard, He'd give him a 'wipe' that would spoil his style. You'd never have thought, to see them bow, The fox was reflecting deeply how He would best proceed, to circumvent His host, and prig The entire pig- Or other bird to the same intent. When Strength and Cunning in love combine, Be sure 't is to more than merely dine. The while these biters ply the lip, A mile ahead the muse shall skip: The poet's purpose she best may serve Inside the den-if she have the nerve. Behold! laid out in dark recess, A ghastly goat in stark undress, Pallid and still on her gelid bed, And indisputably very dead. Her skin depends from a couple of pins- And here the most singular statement begins; For all at once the butchered beast, With easy grace for one deceased, Upreared her head, Looked round, and said, Very distinctly for one so dead: 'The nights are sharp, and the sheets are thin: I find it uncommonly cold herein!' 
I answer not how this was wrought: All miracles surpass my thought. They're vexing, say you? and dementing? Peace, peace! they're none of my inventing. But lest too much of mystery Embarrass this true history, I'll not relate how that this goat Stood up and stamped her feet, to inform'em With-what's the word?-I mean, to warm'em; Nor how she plucked her rough capote From off the pegs where Bruin threw it, And o'er her quaking body drew it; Nor how each act could so befall: I'll only swear she did them all; Then lingered pensive in the grot, As if she something had forgot, Till a humble voice and a voice of pride Were heard, in murmurs of love, outside. Then, like a rocket set aflight, She sprang, and streaked it for the light! Ten million million years and a day Have rolled, since these events, away; But still the peasant at fall of night, Belated therenear, is oft affright By sounds of a phantom bear in flight; A breaking of branches under the hill; The noise of a going when all is still! And hens asleep on the perch, they say, Cackle sometimes in a startled way, As if they were dreaming a dream that mocks The lope and whiz of a fleeting fox! 
