I'll tell thee everything I can:
There's little to relate,
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
"Who are you, aged man?" I said.
'And how is it you live?'
And his answer trickled through my head,
Like water through a sieve.
He said 'I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,' he said,
'Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread-
A trifle, if you please.'
But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried 'Come, tell me how you live!'
And thumped him on the head.
His accents mild took up the tale:
He said 'I go my ways,
And when I find a mountian-rill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland's Macassar-Oil--
Yet two-pence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.'
But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him from side to side,
Until his face was blue:
'Come, tell me how you live,' I cried,
'And what it is you do!'
