Fortune
puffeth up
the heart, |
A MILK-WHITE pigeon (records state)
Was wedded to a milk-white mate:
Nor envied prince nor potentate
This dainty dove,
While crouching to her lord she sate,
And coo’d her love.
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to judge
others. |
Indulged in all her heart’s desire
She felt no spark of lawless fire;
So plumed herself throughout the shire
A pattern wife:
And chid dame Partlet, as in ire,
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A scandal to our sex, I vow,
Those cackling ladies of the mow!
Or black, or red, or high, or low,
They have no care;
So he’s a Cock—’tis quite enow
For welcome there!
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Dame Partlet heard, but felt no shame;
And let alone the vaunty dame,
To nurse her pride of wedded fame;
Herself content
That conscience whisper’d her no blame
Of evil bent.
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A shot!—the dove—she knew the sound!
Her milk-white mate has ta’en a wound:
He languishes upon the ground:
His swimming eyes
Heed not his comrades hovering round:
He gasps—he dies.
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Altered circumstances
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Oh! what can stint a widow’s grief!
Our pattern wife defied relief:
No grain pick’d she, no sprouting leaf,
—As folks could see:
A pattern widow (to be brief)
She fain would be.
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So trimly prinn’d she sat alone,
And lean’d her breast against a stone,
As one for ever woe-begone;
And would not coo:
No wonder that a suitor soon
Came down to woo.
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A vulgar bluerock by my fay!
Without the gentle pouting way
Of him that died the other day:
Alas! he’s gone!
And sore it is for one to stay,
And live alone!
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induce altered
feelings. |
This bluerock press’d his suit so close,
Now strutting up upon his toes,
Now whispering something nose to nose,—
Our milk-white dove
Crouch’d to him, as the story goes,
And coo’d her love.
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Few can afford
to indulge
a fine
taste, though
many may
have it.
|
Dame Partlet eyed the scene askaunt,
And spake:—The pamper’d few may vaunt
Their dainty taste o’er such as want;
But coarser bread
Is good enough to one who can’t
Get fine instead.
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