For the Table Book.
REASON,
If not Rhyme.
Dame Prudence whispers marry not
’Till you have pence enough to pay
For chattels, and to keep a cot,
And leave a mite for quarter-day.
Beside chair, table, and a bed,
Those need, who cannot live on air,
Two plates, a basket for the bread,
And knives and forks at least two pair.
When winter rattles in the sky
Drear is the bed that wants a rug,
And hapless he whose purse is dry
When sickness calls for pill and drug.
So, Bess, we’ll e’en put off the day
For parson C—— to tie us fast—
Who knows but luck, so long away,
May come and bide with us at last?
Hope shall be ours the tedious while;
We’ll mingle hearts, our lips shall join
I’ll only claim thy sweetest smile,
Only thy softest tress be mine.
Verite.