Better thou and I were lying, cold and timber-stiff and dead, With a pan of burning charcoal underneath our nuptial bed. Cursed be the Bank of England's notes, that tempt the soul to sin! Cursed be the want of acres,--doubly cursed the want of tin! Cursed be the marriage contract, that enslaved thy soul to greed! Cursed be the sallow lawyer, that prepared and drew the deed! Cursed be his foul apprentice, who the loathsome fees did earn! Cursed be the clerk and parson,--cursed be the whole concern! * * * * * Oh, 'tis well that I should bluster,--much I'm like to make of that; Better comfort have I found in singing "All around my Hat." But that song so wildly plaintive, palls upon my British ears. 'Twill not do to pine for ever,--I am getting up in years. Can't I turn the honest penny, scribbling for the weekly press, And in writing Sunday libels drown my private wretchedness? Oh, to feel the wild pulsation that in manhood's dawn I knew When my days were all before me, and my years were twenty-two! When I smoked my independent pipe along the Quadrant wide With the many larks of London flaring up on every side; When I went the pace so wildly, caring little what might come; Coffee-milling care and sorrow, with a nose-adapted thumb; Felt the exquisite enjoyment, tossing nightly off, oh heavens! Brandy at the Cider Cellars, kidneys smoking hot at Evans'! Or in the Adelphi sitting, half in rapture, half in tears, Saw the glorious melodrama conjure up the shades of years, Saw Jack Sheppard, noble strippling, act his wondrous feats again, Snapping Newgate's bars of iron, like an infant's daisy chain. Might was right, and all the terrors, which had held the world in awe, Were despised, and prigging prospered, spite of Laurie, spite of law. In such scenes as these I triumphed, ere my passion's edge was rusted, And my cousin's cold refusal left me very much disgusted! Hark! my merry comrade's call me, bawling for another jorum; They would mock me in derision, should I thus appear before 'em. Womankind no more shall vex me, such at least as go arrayed In the most expensive satins and the newest silk brocade. I'll to Afric, lion-haunted, where the giant forest yields Rarer robes and finer tissues than are sold at Spitalfields. Or to burst all chains of habit, flinging habit's self aside, I shall walk the tangled jungle in mankind's primeval pride; Feeding on the luscious berries and the rich cassava root, Lots of dates and lots of guavas, clusters of forbidden fruit. Never comes the trader thither, never o'er the purple main Sounds the oath of British commerce, or the accents of Cockaigne. There, methinks, would be enjoyment, where no envious rule prevents; Sink the steamboats! cuss the railways! rot, O rot the Three per Cents!