There was a Hag who kept two Chambermaids,
So well they spun that the Three Sister Spinners,
Compared with them, were bunglers and beginners.
And her sole study was to give them work.
The moment Phoebus left his watery bed,
Up wheel, up distaffs, spin, spin, spin,
Morning out and evening in,
She kept 'em at it like a Turk.
The moment Eos raised her golden head,
A shabby cock would crow his punctual note:
The Hag, still shabbier, from her pallet leaping,
Would huddle on a greasy petticoat,
Light a cracked lamp, and scurry to the bed
Where the poor slaves with all their might
Were fiercely, ravenously sleeping.
One stretched an arm, one opened half an eye,
And both with concentrated spite
Swore through their teeth that the damned cock should die.
No sooner said than done--that Scrannel crow
Was hushed; but did the assassins profit? No--
The Hag became her own alarum,
And lest the hour should slip her unbeknown,
Began to hustle harum-scarum
Almost before the pair had lain them them.

Thus oft a struggle to escape
But lands us in a still worse scrape:
To exchange the cock for old Sibylla
Was From Charybdis into Scylla.