Her Terms

My wedded life
Must every pleasure bring
On scale extensive!
If I’m your wife
I must have everything
That’s most expensive—
A lady’s-maid—
(My hair alone to do
I am not able)—
And I’m afraid
I’ve been accustomed to
A first-rate table.
These things one must consider when one marries—
And everything I wear must come from Paris!
Oh, think of that!
Oh, think of that!
I can’t wear anything that’s not from Paris!
From top to toes
Quite Frenchified I am,
If you examine.
And then—who knows?—
Perhaps some day a fam—
Perhaps a famine!
My argument’s correct, if you examine,
What should we do, if there should come a f-famine!

Though in green pea
Yourself you needn’t stint
In July sunny,
In Januaree
It really costs a mint—
A mint of money!
No lamb for us—
House lamb at Christmas sells
At prices handsome:
Asparagus,
In winter, parallels
A Monarch’s ransom:
When purse to bread and butter barely reaches,
What is your wife to do for hot-house peaches?
Ah! tell me that!
Ah! tell me that!
What is your wife to do for hot-house peaches?
Your heart and hand
Though at my feet you lay,
All others scorning!
As matters stand,
There’s nothing now to say
Except—good morning!
Though virtue be a husband’s best adorning,
That won’t pay rates and taxes—so, good morning!