Pin And Needle.

        A pin which long had done its duty,
        Attendant on a reigning beauty, -
        Had held her muffler, fixed her hair,
        And made its mistress _debonnaire_, -
        Now near her heart in honour placed,
        Now banished to the rear disgraced;
        From whence, as partners of her shame,
        She saw the lovers served the same.
        From whence, thro' various turns of life,
        She saw its comforts and its strife:
        With tailors warm, with beggars cold,
        Or clutched within a miser's hold.
        His maxim racked her wearied ear:
        "A pin a day's a groat a year."
        Restored to freedom by the proctor,
        She paid some visits with a doctor;
        She pinned a bandage that was crossed,
        And thence, at Gresham Hall, was lost.
        Charmed with its wonders, she admires,
        And now of this, now that inquires -
        'Twas plain, in noticing her mind,
        She was of virtuoso kind.

        "What's this thing in this box, dear sir?"

        "A needle," said the interpreter.

        "A needle shut up in a box?
        Good gracious me, why sure it locks!
        And why is it beside that flint?
        I could give her now a good hint:
        If she were handed to a sempstress,
        She would hem more and she would clem less."

        "Pin!" said the needle, "cease to blunder:
        Stupid alike your hints and wonder.
        This is a loadstone, and its virtue -
        Though insufficient to convert you -
        Makes me a magnet; and afar
        True am I to my polar star.
        The pilot leaves the doubtful skies,
        And trusts to me with watchful eyes;
        By me the distant world is known,
        And both the Indies made our own.
        I am the friend and guide of sailors,
        And you of sempstresses and tailors."