Shakesperian Readings

Oh, but to fade, and live we know not where,

To be a cold obstruction and to groan!

This sensible, warm woman to become

A prudish clod; and the delighted spirit

To live and die alone, or to reside

With married sisters, and to have the care

Of half a dozen children, not your own;

And driven, for no one wants you,

Round the pendant world; or worse than worse

Of those that disappointment and pure spite

Have driven to madness: ’Tis too horrible!

The weariest and most troubled married life

That age, ache, penury, or jealousy

Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To being an old maid.

That very time I saw, (but thou couldst not,)

Walking between the garden and the barn,

Reuben, all armed; a certain aim he took

At a young chicken standing by a post,

And loosed his bullet smartly from his gun,

As he would kill a hundred thousand hens.

But I might see young Reuben’s fiery shot

Lodged in the chaste board of the garden fence,

And the domesticated fowl passed on,

In henly meditation, bullet free.

My father had a daughter got a man,

As it might be, perhaps, were I good-looking,

I should, your lordship.

And what’s her residence?

A hut my lord, she never owned a house,

But let her husband, like a graceless scamp,

Spend all her little means,—she thought she ought,—

And in a wretched chamber, on an alley,

She worked like masons on a monument,

Earning their bread. Was not this love indeed?