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."