A. M. Beamish

“ When a man has his waistcoats made wide,
And his wife ceases strumming the keys on,
And carries her keys by her side;
When we will go to sleep after dinner,
And perhaps at odd times in the day;
When the hair on our head’s getting thinner,
And our beard and our whiskers get grey;
When we can’t hold our horse with a snaffle;
When our waltzing’s no longer our forte ”

“ As I of her from whose fair hand it fell.
IX.
Why should I drag her from her high position,
Her niche above this work-day world’s long reach?
Hardly a fact, nor wholly yet a vision,
She joins for me the better parts of each. ”