Now, Captain Bagg had bowed him to
A heavy matrimonial yoke—
His wifey had of faults a few—
She never could resist a joke.
Her chaff at first he meekly bore,
Till unendurable it grew.
“To stop this persecution sore
I will consult my friend Carew.
“And when Carew’s advice I’ve got,
Divorce a mensâ I shall try.”
(A legal separation—not
A vinculo conjugii.)
“Oh, Baines Carew, my woe I’ve kept
A secret hitherto, you know;”—
(And Baines Carew, Esquire, he wept
To hear that Bagg had any woe.)
“My case, indeed, is passing sad.
My wife—whom I considered true—
With brutal conduct drives me mad.”
“I am appalled,” said Baines Carew.
“What! sound the matrimonial knell
Of worthy people such as these!
Why was I an attorney? Well—
Go on to the sævitia, please.”
“Domestic bliss has proved my bane,—
A harder case you never heard,
My wife (in other matters sane)
Pretends that I’m a Dicky bird!
“She makes me sing, ‘Too-whit, too-wee!’
And stand upon a rounded stick,
And always introduces me
To every one as ‘Pretty Dick’!”
“Oh, dear,” said weeping Baines Carew,
“This is the direst case I know.”
“I’m grieved,” said Bagg, “at paining you—
To Cobb and Poltherthwaite I’ll go—
“To Cobb’s cold, calculating ear,
My gruesome sorrows I’ll impart”—
“No; stop,” said Baines, “I’ll dry my tear,
And steel my sympathetic heart.”