"Was ever maiden so abused as I am?
Teazed into such a marriage--then to be
Dosed with my husband twenty times _per diem_,
With _repetetur haustus_ after tea!
And, if he should die, what can I get by him?
A jointure's nothing among fifty-three!
I'm meek enough--but this I can _not_ bear--
I wish: I wish:--I wish a girl might swear!"
In such a mood, she--(stop! I'll mend my pen;
For now all our preliminaries _are_ done,
And I am come unto the crisis, when
Her fate depends on a kind reader's pardon)--
Wandering forth beyond the ladies' ken,
She thought she spied a male face in the garden--
She hasten'd thither--she was not mistaken,
For sure enough, a man was there a-raking.
A man complete he was who own'd the visage,
A man of thirty-three, or may-be longer--
So young, she could not well distinguish his age--
So old, she knew he had one day been younger.
Now thirty-three, although a very nice age,
Is not so nice as twenty, twenty-one, or
So; but of lovers when a lady's caught one,
She seldom stops to stipulate what sort o' one.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45