TO MRS. LEIGH UPON HER WEDDING-DAY
WHILE all to this auspicious day
Well pleased their heartfelt homage pay
And sweetly smile and softly say
A hundred civic speeches;
My Muse shall strike her tuneful strings,
Nor scorn the gift her duty brings,
Tho’ humble be the theme she sings,—
A pair of shooting breeches.
Soon shall the tailor’s subtle art
Have made them tight, and spruce, and smart,
And fastened well in every part
With twenty thousand stitches;
Mark then the moral of my song,
Oh, may your lives but prove as strong,
And wear as well, and last as long,
As these, my shooting breeches.
And when, to ease the load of life,
Of private care, and public strife,
My lot shall give to me a wife,
I ask not rank or riches;
For worth like thine alone I pray,
Temper like thine serene and gay,
And formed like thee to give away,
Not wear herself, the breeches.
George Canning.