I Won’t Explain

I could explain it, but I won’t explain.
Only a few men comprehend, distraught
By ignorance, their cool, searching minds caught
Needing to share what’s in their sharper brain.
A woman asked me once, “Have you gone sane?”
“Oh, I think not, my darling, I think not.
I think you’ve been reading Sir Walter Scott —
Rob Roy! Guy Mannering! Rob Roy again!”

Don’t listen to a woman’s maundering,
Her sad refrain a monument to smoke.
It’s a mere fool’s delight, a pig in a poke,
A female explanation; a loose string,
A vacuous performance, a bee sting
(Death being imminent), an empty joke.