The Mouse and the Mole
"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."
             —Samuel Johnson

"Though you live in a hole,"
Said the mouse to the mole,
"I know I can teach you so much.
By my soul, by my soul,
I'm just out of control
When your forepaws and mine even brush."

"Though you live in a house,"
Said the mole to the mouse,
"You will make me a very fine wife.
By my paws, by my claws,
By my tail and my jaws,
I won't leave you the rest of my life."

In June they were married—
Unhurried, unharried—
With nocturnal friends gathered round.
The band played in tune
On a bright honeymoon.
Then they tried to find their common ground.

They went to the knoll
Proudly picked by the mole
For his mouse, as their new home-to-be.
With his forepaws he dug
While she purchased the rug
And the drapes and the color TV.

And they lived cheek to cheek
For a month and a week
In their Paradise under the ground.
But then it befell
(Though it hurts me to tell)
That their lives, with their paws, came unwound.

"Though we live in a hole,"
Said the mouse to the mole,
"There's no reason for this I can see.
Can't we live in a house?
Oh, my dear, lovely spouse,
Any hole is a hovel to me."

With his back to his mouse
The mole said, "In a house
I'd be hungrier than in a jail.
I couldn't find bugs,
Nor a spider and slugs—
I'd be constantly wringing my tail."

"Oh, that's very droll,"
Said the mouse to the mole,
"But bugs live in floorboards and sills.
There are termites and fleas
And roaches and bees
And if you can't find them, I will.

"I don't mean to grouse
In—your home," said the mouse,
"But I won't live here one minute more.
There's dust in my dough,
In my skirt and trousseau,
And I can't get the dirt off the floor."

"If you don't like our house,"
Said the mole to the mouse,
"Then you'll have to find some other rodent.
My sweet, lovely spouse,
The life of a fieldmouse
Was all (so you said) that you wanted."

"Oh you louse, oh you LOUSE!"
Said the angry young mouse,
"You're as bad as those insects you eat!"
Her snout twitched her head
And her whiskers turned red
And she left in a blur of four feet.

Now sole in his hole
Sits a lonely old mole
While his stomach and stubbornness grow.
He lowers his nose
Till it touches his toes
And he doesn't know where he should go.

He has stuffed both his cheeks
Thirty years (and two weeks)
In his Paradise under the ground.
And thus it befalls
That the dirt and four walls
Of his home hold no strife, but no sound.

So he pouts there at night—
For she never does write
From her house so impeccably neat—
Yet he treasures the loam
Of his own catacomb
While she vacuums the dust from her street.