Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/92

 THE MARE'S NEST

Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse

Was good beyond all earthly need;

But, on the other hand, her spouse

Was very, very bad indeed.

He smoked cigars, called churches slow,

And raced—but this she did not know.

For Belial Machiavelli kept

The little fact a secret, and,

Though o'er his minor sins she wept,

Jane Austen did not understand

That Lilly—thirteen-two and bay—

Absorbed one half her husband's pay.

She was so good she made him worse

(Some women are like this, I think);

He taught her parrot how to curse,

Her Assam monkey how to drink.

He vexed her righteous soul until

She went up, and he went down hill.

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