TO A TOO-ENGAGING MAIDEN.
I think you should know I've been put out of humour
By something I hear very nearly each day.
In a small town like ours, as you know, every rumour
Gets about in a truly remarkable way.
It is too much to hope for that women won't prattle,
But I candidly tell you, I do feel enraged
When I find that a part of their stock tittle-tattle
Is that we—how I laugh at the thought!—are engaged.
Though you don't even claim to be reckoned as pretty,
You are not, I admit it, aggressively plain.
You dress pretty well, and your talk, if not witty,
As a rule doesn't give me much positive pain.
You will one day be rich, for your prospects are "healthy,"
Yet as Beauty and Riches do not make up Life,
Why, were you as lovely as Venus, as wealthy
As Croesus I wouldn't have you for my wife.
Are you free altogether from blame in the matter—
I'm resolved to be frank, so it's useless to frown—
Have you not had a share in the mischievous chatter
Which makes our "engagement" the talk of the town?
When some eager, impertinent person hereafter
Shall inquire of its truth, and shall ask, "Is it so?"
Instead of implying assent by your laughter,
Would you kindly oblige me by answering, "No"?
I recognise freely your marvellous kindness
In allowing your name to be linked with my own.
Maybe it is only incurable blindness
To your charms that compels me to let them alone.
But if with reports I am still to be harried,
I've thoroughly made up my mind what to do;
Just to settle it all, I shall shortly be married,
I shall shortly be married, but not—not to you.
"WHO BREAKS PAYS."—"In some large restaurants," says the Daily Chronicle, "the girls engaged have to pay for the breakages which occur in the course of carrying on a business in which they are not partners." If the maxim at the head of this paragraph were strictly and impartially enforced, such exacting employers would have to pay pretty smartly for certain "breakages" which occur in the carrying on of a business in which they consider they have no concern—breakages, to wit, of the girls' health, spirits, and, often, hearts!
MODERN VERSION OF "WISE MEN OF THE EAST."—The Congress of Orientalists.
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