Married,—but wiser puss ne'er thought of that;

And first he worried her with railing rhyme,

Like Pembroke's mastives at his kindest time;

Then for one night sold all his slavish life,

A teeming widow, but a barren wife.

Swelled by contact of such a fulsome toad,

He lugged about the matrimonial load;

Till fortune, blindly kind as well as he,

Has ill restored him to his liberty;

Which he would use in his old sneaking way,