THE PSALM OF FICTION.
Tell us not in mournful "numbers"
Life is all a ghastly dream!
Such as those we have in slumbers
When the nightmare makes us scream.
Life is dark enough in earnest
Without bringing in the gaol,
Only readers of the sternest
Like their heroines out on bail.
Not to swindle, or to borrow
Is the reputable way;
Not to marry, and to-morrow
Kill your bride, and run away.
Arson's wrong, and poisoning dreary,
And our hearts, though pretty brave
Now and then get rather weary
Of the gallows, and the grave.
In the great domestic battle,
In the matrimonial strife,
Be not like those Mormon "Cattle,"
Give your hero but one wife.
Wives and Daughters should remind you
There are women without crime;
Draw them and you'll leave behind you
Fictions that may weather time.
Fictions free from that Inspector,
Who is sent by Richard Mayne,
And finds footmarks that affect a
Solemn butler in the lane.
Let us, then, have no more trials,
No more tampering with wills,
Leave the poisons in the phials
And the money in the tills.