A farmer's wife, both young and gay,
And fresh as op'ning buds of May;
Had taken to herself, a Spouse,
And plighted many solemn vows,
That she a faithful mate would prove,
In meekness, duty, and in love!
That she, despising joy and wealth,
Would be, in sickness and in health,
His only comfort and his Friend--
But, mark the sequel,--and attend!

This Farmer, as the tale is told--
Was somewhat cross, and somewhat old!
His, was the wintry hour of life,
While summer smiled before his wife;
A contrast, rather form'd to cloy

The alabaster legs of the lonely woman
hang from the window like white ensigns
out of the laughing window like false teeth
sheets, flagstaffs, telescopes, rolls of music,
or you would say beheaded necks of swans
or the electric horns of factories
where foreign dreams are nightly fabricated.

Yearning for her coal once heaved in the seam
for her the sewers shrieked their way through London
and pigeons ate each other in the air.

But the deserted lady is frozen to the marrow
her heart has floated into her left leg

King Arthur lives in merry Carleile,
And seemely is to see;
And there with him queene Guenever,
That bride soe bright of blee.

And there with him queene Guenever,
That bride so bright in bowre:
And all his barons about him stoode,
That were both stiffe and stowre.

The king a royale Christmasse kept,
With mirth and princelye cheare;
To him repaired many a knighte,
That came both farre and neare.

And when they were to dinner sette,
And cups went freely round;
Before them came a faire damsèlle,

Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse
Was good beyond all earthly need;
But, on the other hand, her spouse
Was very, very bad indeed.
He smoked cigars, called churches slow,
And raced -- but this she did not know.

For Belial Machiavelli kept
The little fact a secret, and,
Though o'er his minor sins she wept,
Jane Austen did not understand
That Lilly -- thirteen-two and bay
Absorbed one-half her husband's pay.

She was so good, she made hime worse;
(Some women are like this, I think;)
He taught her parrot how to curse,

Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.
Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges
showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges
where weeds hang to the simple blue from green.
Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under,
drawing it unperturbed around itself?
Along the fine tan sandy shelf
is the land tugging at the sea from under?

The shadow of Newfoundland lies flat and still.
Labrador's yellow, where the moony Eskimo
has oiled it. We can stroke these lovely bays,
under a glass as if they were expected to blossom,

Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
Or my cheeks make pale with care
'Cause another's rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day
Or the flowery meads in May --
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?

Shall my foolish heart be pined
'Cause I see a woman kind;
Or a well dispos-ed nature
Join-ed with a lovely feature?
Be she meeker, kinder, than
Turtle-dove or pelican,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how kind she be?

Shall a woman's virtues move

They were hanging men in Buckland who would not cheer King George –
The parson from his pulpit and the blacksmith from his forge;
They were hanging men and brothers, and the stoutest heart was down,
When a quiet man from Buckland rode at dusk to raise Charlestown.

Not a young man in his glory filled with patriotic fire,
Not an orator or soldier, or a known man in his shire;
He was just the Unexpected – one of Danger's Volunteers,
At a time for which he'd waited, all unheard of, many years.

He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,
In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.
He's gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown;
He's greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt.
He sports a crop of whiskers that would shame a healthy hog;
Hard work has racked his joints and stooped his back;
He slops along the sidewalk followed by his yellow dog,
But he's got a bunch of gold-dust in his sack.

He seems a little wistful as he blinks at all the lights,
And maybe he is thinking of his claim

"You're bloody right - I was a Red,"
The Man from Cook's morosely said.
And if our chaps had won the War
Today I'd be the Governor
Of all Madrid, and rule with pride,
Instead of just a lousy guide.

"For I could talk in Councils high
To draw down angels from the sky.
They put me seven years in gaol, -
You see how I am prison-pale . . .
Death sentence! Each dawn I thought
They'd drag me out and have me shot.

"Maybe far better if they had:
Suspense like that can make one mad.
Yet here I am serene and sane,

SOME wit, handsome form and gen'rous mind;
A triple engine prove in love we find;
By these the strongest fortresses are gained
E'en rocks 'gainst such can never be sustained.
If you've some talents, with a pleasing face,
Your purse-strings open free, and you've the place.
At times, no doubt, without these things, success
Attends the gay gallant, we must confess;
But then, good sense should o'er his actions rule;
At all events, he must not be a fool.
The stingy, women ever will detest;
Words puppies want;--the lib'ral are the best.