1.1Oh, but to fade, and live we know not where,1.2To be a cold obstruction and to groan!1.3This sensible, warm woman, to become1.4A prudish clod; and the delighted spirit1.5To live and die alone, or to reside1.6With married sisters, and to have the care1.7Of half a dozen children, not your own;1.8And driven, for no one wants you,1.9Round about the pendant world; or worse than worst1.10Of those that disappointment and pure spite1.11Have driven to madness: 'Tis too horrible!1.12The weariest and most troubled married life1.13That age, ache, penury, or jealousy1.14Can lay on nature, is a paradise1.15To being an old maid.
2.2Walking between the garden and the barn,2.3Reuben, all armed; a certain aim he took2.4At a young chicken, standing by a post,2.5And loosed his bullet smartly from his gun,2.6As he would kill a hundred thousand hens.2.7But I might see young Reuben's fiery shot2.8Lodged in the chaste board of the garden fence,2.9And the domesticated fowl passed on,2.10In henly meditation, bullet free.
3.2As it might be, perhaps, were I good-looking,3.3I should, your lordship.3.4And what's her residence?3.5A hut, my lord, she never owned a house,3.6But let her husband, like a graceless scamp,3.7Spend all her little means, -- she thought she ought, --3.8And in a wretched chamber, on an alley,3.9She worked like masons on a monument,3.10Earning their bread. Was not this love indeed?
