Titania

By Lord T-n.
  So bluff Sir Leolin gave the bride away:
  And when they married her, the little church
  Had seldom seen a costlier ritual.
  The coach and pair alone were two-pound-ten,
  And two-pound-ten apiece the wedding-cakes;—
  Three wedding-cakes. A Cupid poised a-top
  Of each hung shivering to the frosted loves
  Of two fond cushats on a field of ice,
  As who should say 'I see you!'—Such the joy
  When English-hearted Edwin swore his faith
  With Mariana of the Moated Grange.
  For Edwin, plump head-waiter at The Cock,
  Grown sick of custom, spoilt of plenitude,
  Lacking the finer wit that saith,
 'I wait, They come; and if I make them wait, they go,'
  Fell in a jaundiced humour petulant-green,
  Watched the dull clerk slow-rounding to his cheese,
  Flicked a full dozen flies that flecked the pane—
  All crystal-cheated of the fuller air,
  Blurted a free 'Good-day t'ye,' left and right,
  And shaped his gathering choler to this head:—
 'Custom! And yet what profit of it all?
  The old order changeth yielding place to new,
  To me small change, and this the Counter-change
  Of custom beating on the self-same bar—
  Change out of chop. Ah me! the talk, the tip,
  The would-be-evening should-be-mourning suit,
  The forged solicitude for petty wants
  More petty still than they,—all these I loathe,
  Learning they lie who feign that all things come
  To him that waiteth. I have waited long,
  And now I go, to mate me with a bride
  Who is aweary waiting, even as I!'
  But when the amorous moon of honeycomb
  Was over, ere the matron-flower of Love—
  Step-sister of To-morrow's marmalade—
  Swooned scentless, Mariana found her lord
  Did something jar the nicer feminine sense
  With usage, being all too fine and large,
  Instinct of warmth and colour, with a trick
  Of blunting 'Mariana's' keener edge
  To 'Mary Ann'—the same but not the same:
  Whereat she girded, tore her crisped hair,
  Called him 'Sir Churl,' and ever calling 'Churl!'
  Drave him to Science, then to Alcohol,
  To forge a thousand theories of the rocks,
  Then somewhat else for thousands dewy cool,
  Wherewith he sought a more Pacific isle
  And there found love, a duskier love than hers.