Oh Daddy, look at that man,
excuse my pointing, but just look at him!

He is in a frenzy or something,
as if a red rag or something had been shook at him!
His eyes are rolling like a maniac's,
Oh isn't it shocking how insaniacs!
Oh Daddy, he is talking to thin air,

He is having a long conversation
with somebody who isn't there!
He is talking to himself,
he must be under the influence
of either Luna or Bacchus;

Oh Daddy, Daddy, I think we had better go
a long way away from him immediately
because one in his condition might
at any moment have an impulse to attacchus!

Nay, flush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye,
my little white manchild,
Who if your parents hadn't been Caucasian
would have been an ebony or copper or tan child,
Life will teach you many things,
chief of which is that every man
who talks to himself isn't necessarily
out of his wits;

He may have a wife who knits.
Probably only he and his Maker

Know how many evenings he has spent
trying to raise a conversation
while his beloved created sweaters
by the acre.

Ah, my inquiring offspring,
you must learn that life can be very bitter,
But never quite so much so as when trying
to pry a word out of a knitter.
Sometimes she knits and sits,
Sometimes she sits and knits,

And you tell her what you have been
doing all day and you ask what
she has been doing all day and nothing happens,
and you tell her what you would like to do
this evening and ask her what she would like
to do this evening and nothing happens,
and you think you will disintegrate
if you don't get some response,
and you speak tenderly of your courtship
and your bridal,
And you might just as well try to
get a response out of an Oriental idol,
And you notice a spasmodic movement of her lips,

And you think she is going to say something
but she is only counting the number
of stitches it takes to surround the hips;

And she furrows her beautiful brow,
which is a sign that something
is wrong somewhere and you keep on talking,
and disregard the sign,

And she casts a lethal glance,
as one who purls before swine,

And this goes on for weeks
At the end of which she
lays her work down and speaks,
And you think now maybe you can
have some home life but she speaks
in a tone as far off as Mercury or Saturn,

And she says thank goodness that is finished,
it is a sight and she will never be able to wear it,
but it doesn't matter because
she can hardly wait to start on
an adorable new pattern,

And when this has been going on
for a long time,
why that's the time that strong men
break down and go around talking
to themselves in public, finally,
And it doesn't mean that they are
weak mentally or spinally,
It doesn't mean, my boy,
that they ought to be in an asylum,
like Nijinksy the dancer,

It only means that they got into the habit
of talking to themselves at home because
they themselves were the only people
they could talk to and get an answer.

I found it on http://knitting.livejournal.com