My Feud
Robert William Service
I hate my neighbour Widow Green;
I’d like to claw her face;
But if I did she’d make a scene
And run me round the place:
For widows are in way of spleen
A most pugnacious race.
And yet I must do something quick
To keep the hag in line,
Since her red rooster chose to pick
Five lettuce heads of mine:
And so I fed it arsenic
Which it did not decline.
It disappeared, but on my mat
Before a week had sped
I found Mi-mi, my tabby cat
And it was stoney dead;
I diagnosed with weeping that
On strychnine it had fed.
And so I bought a hamburg steak,
Primed it with powdered glass,
And left it for her dog to take
With gulping from the grass:
Since then, although I lie awake
I have not seen it pass.
Well, that’s the scoring up to date:
And as I read a text
From Job to justify my hate
I wonder who’ll be next?
Somehow I feel that one must die,
Ma Green or I.
