Classic Poem

To hear the unlucky wife of Bicci cough,
(Bicci, — Forese as he's called, you know, — )
You'd fancy she had wintered, sure enough,
Where icebergs rear themselves in constant snow:
And Lord! if in mid-August it is so,
How in the frozen months must she come off?
To wear her socks abed avails not, — no,
Nor quilting from Cortona, warm and tough.
Her cough, her cold, and all her other ills,
Do not afflict her through the rheum of age,
But through some want within her nest, poor spouse!
This grief, with other griefs, her mother feels,
Who says, " Without much trouble, I'll engage,
She might have married in Count Guido's house!"