POETRY.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2168, 5 February 1881, Page 3

POETRY.

• THE EASY WIFE. There's just one thing a man can have In all this world of woe and strife, That makes the business not too bad, And that one thing's an easy wife. Dost fancy that I love my girl For rosy cheeks or raven hair ? She holds my heart beoause she laughs— Because she laughs, and doesn't care. I put my boots just where it suits, And find them where I put them, too : That is a thing, you must allow, A chap can very seldom do. I leave my papers on my desk ; She never puts them in a heap. Or takes to light the kitchen stove The very one I want to keep. On winter night my cozy dame Will warm her toes before the fire ; * She never scolds abont the lamp, Or want* the wick a trifle higher. On Sundays she is not so fine But what her n:fll;s I can hug ; I light my pipe just where I please, And spill the ashes on the rug.

The bed is never filled with " shams " A thing some women vilely plan To worry servants half to death, And spoil the temper of a man. She lets me sleep to any hour, Nor raises any horrid din If it just happens, now and then, To be quite late when I come in. I tell you, Jack, if you would wed, Just get a girl who lets things run; She'll keep her temper like a lamb, And help you on to lots of fun. Don't look for money, style, or show, Or blushing beauty, ripe and rare ; Just take the one who laughs at fate— Who laughs, and shows she doesn't care. You think, perhaps, our household ways Are just perchance a little mixed ; Or when they get too horrid bad, We stir about and get things fixed. What compensation has a man Who earns his bread by sweat of brow, If home is made a battle-ground, And life one long, eternal row ? —" Harper's Magazine."