“IT WAS BEFORE I MARRIED.”
A BENEDICTINE LYRIC.
Well, come my dear, I will confess—
(Though really you too hard are)
So dry these tears and smooth each tress—
Let Betty search the larder;
Then o’er a chop and genial glass,
Though I so late have tarried,
I will recount what came to pass
I’ the days before I married.
Then, every place where fashion hies,
Wealth, health, and youth to squander,
I sought—shot folly as it flies,
’Till I could shoot no longer.
Still at the opera, playhouse, clubs,
’Till midnight’s hour I tarried;
Mixed in each scene that fashion dubs
“The Cheese”—before I married.
Soon grown familiar with the town,
Through Pleasure’s haze I hurried;
(Don’t feel alarmed—suppress that frown—
Another glass—you’re flurried)
Subscribed to Crockford’s, betted high—
Such specs too oft miscarried;
My purse was full (nay, check that sigh)—
It was before I married.
At Ascot I was quite the thing,
Where all admired my tandem;
I sparkled in the stand and ring,
Talked, betted (though at random);
At Epsom, and at Goodwood too,
I flying colours carried.
Flatterers and followers not a few
Were mine—before I married.
My cash I lent to every one,
And gay crowds thronged around me;
My credit, when my cash was gone,
’Till bills and bailiffs bound me.
With honeyed promises so sweet,
Each friend his object carried,
Till I was marshalled to the Fleet;
But—’twas before I married.
Then sober thoughts of wedlock came,
Suggested by the papers;
The Sunday Times soon raised a flame,
The Post cured all my vapours;
And spite of what Romance may say
’Gainst courtship so on carried,
Thanks to the fates and fair “Z.A.”
I now am blest and—married.