Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet
To spin your wordy fabric in the street;
While you read more

Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet
To spin your wordy fabric in the street;
While you are emptying your colloquial pack,
The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back.

His talk was like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rock to roses;
It slipped read more

His talk was like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rock to roses;
It slipped from politics to puns;
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws that keep
The planets in the radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels or shoeing horses.

In general those who nothing have to say
Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it.

In general those who nothing have to say
Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it.

Talk to him of Jacob's ladder, and he would ask the number of the
steps.

Talk to him of Jacob's ladder, and he would ask the number of the
steps.

With vollies of eternal babble.

With vollies of eternal babble.

But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little, and who talk too much.

But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little, and who talk too much.

It would talk;
Lord, how it talked!

It would talk;
Lord, how it talked!

Whose talk is of bullocks.

Whose talk is of bullocks.

And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south
With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth;
read more

And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south
With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth;
Four things greater than all things are--
Women and Horses and Power and War.