Delilah Aberyswith was a lady--not too young--
With a perfect taste in dresses and a badly-bitted tongue,
With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praise,
And a little house in Simla in the Prehistoric Days.
By reason of her marriage to a gentleman in power,
Delilah was acquainted with the gossip of the hour;
And many little secrets, of the half-official kind,
Were whispered to Delilah, and she bore them all in mind.
She patronized extensively a man, Ulysses Gunne,
Whose mode of earning money was a low and shameful one.
He wrote for certain papers, which, as everybody knows,
Is worse than serving in a shop or scaring off the crows.
He praised her "queenly beauty" first; and, later on, he hinted
At the "vastness of her intellect" with compliment unstinted.
He went with her a-riding, and his love for her was such
That he lent her all his horses and--she galled them very much.
One day, THEY brewed a secret of a fine financial sort;
It related to Appointments, to a Man and a Report.
'Twas almost worth the keeping,--only seven people knew it--
And Gunne rose up to seek the truth and patiently pursue it.
It was a Viceroy's Secret, but--perhaps the wine was red--
Perhaps an Aged Councillor had lost his aged head--
Perhaps Delilah's eyes were bright--Delilah's whispers sweet--
The Aged Member told her what 'twere treason to repeat.
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