Two tablets, and a box of old cigars;
Remnants of volumes, once in some repute,
Were thinly scattered round, to tell the eye
Of prying stranger—this man had no wife.
His tatter’d elbow gap’d most piteously;
And ever as he turned him round, his skin
Did through his stockings peep upon the day.
Noting his gloom, unto myself I said,
“And if a man did covet single life,
Reckless of joys that matrimony gives,