Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 7 (October 1915-March 1916).djvu/317

Postponement Brought in three hundred and thirty dollars extra per annum. "In two or three years I shall risk going," he would say; "And then !


 * But if Albert stayed single, all his sisters did not;

And if he himself kept on living, several of his adult relatives died And when he was fifty-two a bunch of grand-nieces Asked him to help on their grocery bills, And to see that their mortgage-interest got paid on time. Other things of like nature happened, And Albert presently perceived that not every single man Can escape the obligations and responsibilities of the married state. "Well, I must wait," he said And he began to collect views of the Dolomites.


 * Albert prosed along past sixty,

As our muse indicated at the start. His young relatives grew up, And some of them married; And those who remained single Were cared for by their sisters' husbands. And one day Albert got word That a wealthy cousin, twice removed, Who had made millions out of the Michigan forests, And had multiplied them into tens of millions on the stock exchange,