All night, she lay sleepless — or dreaming, all night,
That a coffin a wedding implies! —
John dream'd he had lost her! and wept with delight;
But he wak'd, and saw rage in her eyes!
With her hands on her hips, clad already, she seem'd
Prepar'd, and determin'd for strife;
For John was bewitch'd! and by all he was deem'd
The plague of his plague of a wife.
" Young wives and old husbands shall never agree, "
Sigh'd Susan, repenting too late;
" One side of a ladder is hardly a stee, "
Sigh'd John, as he turn'd from his mate.
Poor Henpeck! to please her all vainly he tried;
For though quite an angel was she,
He could not have pleas'd her, unless he had died,
And no such intention had he.
A spell was upon him — Yes, do what he might,
His virtues were manifest crimes;
He always did wrong, and she always did right!
As she'd told him, some hundreds of times.