<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=415910" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>After the Golden Wedding (Three Soliloquies)</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I. The husband's. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She's not a faultless woman; no!<br>She's not an angel in disguise:<br>She has her rivals here below:<br>She's not an unexampled prize:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She does not always see the point<br>Of little jests her husband makes:<br>And, when the world is out of joint,<br>She makes a hundred small mistakes:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She's not a miracle of tact:<br>Her temper's not the best I know:<br>She's got her little faults in fact,<br>Although I never tell her so.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But this, my wife, is why I hold you<br>As good a wife as ever stepped,<br>And why I meant it when I told you<br>How cordially our feast I kept:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You've lived with me these fifty years,<br>And all the time you loved me dearly:<br>I may have given you cause for tears:<br>I may have acted rather queerly.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I ceased to love you long ago:<br>I loved another for a season:<br>As time went on I came to know<br>Your worth, my wife: and saw the reason</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Why such a wife as you have been<br>Is more than worth the world beside;<br>You loved me all the time, my Queen;<br>You couldn't help it if you tried.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You loved me as I once loved you,<br>As each loved each beside the altar:<br>And whatsoever I might do,<br>Your loyal heart could never falter.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And, if you sometimes fail me, sweetest,<br>And don't appreciate me, dear,<br>No matter: such defects are meetest<br>For poor humanity, I fear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And all's forgiven, all's forgot,<br>On this our golden wedding day;<br>For, see! she loves me: does she not?<br>So let the world e'en go its way.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I'm old and nearly useless now,<br>Each day a greater weakling proves me:<br>There's compensation anyhow:<br>I still possess a wife that loves me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>2. The wife's. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dear worthy husband! good old man!<br>Fit hero of a golden marriage:<br>I'll show towards you, if I can,<br>And absolutely wifely carriage.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The months or years which your career<br>May still comprise before you perish,<br>Shall serve to prove that I, my dear,<br>Can honour, and obey, and cherish.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Till death us part, as soon he must,<br>(And you, my dear, should shew the way)<br>I hope you'll always find me just<br>The same as on our wedding day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I never loved you, dearest: never!<br>Let that be clearly understood:<br>I thought you good, and rather clever,<br>And found you really rather good.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And, what was more, I loved another,<br>But couldn't get him: well, but, then<br>You're just as bad, my erring brother,<br>You most impeccable of men:--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Except for this: my love was married<br>Some weeks before I married you:<br>While you, my amorous dawdler, tarried<br>Till we'd been wed a year or two.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You loved me at our wedding: I<br>Loved some one else: and after that<br>I never cast a loving eye<br>On others: you -- well, tit for tat!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But after all I made you cheerful:<br>Your whims I've humoured: saw the point<br>Of all your jokes: grew duly tearful,<br>When you were sad, yet chose the joint</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You liked the best of all for dinner,<br>And soothed you in your hours of woe:<br>Although a miserable sinner,<br>I am a good wife, as wives go.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I bore with you and took your side,<br>And kept my temper all the time:<br>I never flirted; never cried,<br>No ranked it as a heinous crime,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When you preferred another lady,<br>Or used improper words to me,<br>Or told a story more than shady,<br>Or snored and snorted after tea,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or otherwise gave proofs of being<br>A dull and rather vain old man:<br>I still succeeded in agreeing<br>With all you said, (the safest plan),</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet always strove my point to carry,<br>And make you do as I desired:<br>I'm glad my people made me marry!<br>They hit on just what I required.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Had love been wanted - well, I couldn't<br>Have given what I'd not to give;<br>Or had a genius asked me! wouldn't<br>The man have suffered? now, we live</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Among our estimable neighbours<br>A decent and decorous life:<br>I've earned by my protracted labours<br>The title of a model wife.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But when beneath the turf you're sleeping,<br>And I'm sitting here in black, <br>Engaged, as they'll suppose, in weeping,<br>I shall not wish to have you back.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>3. The Vicar's. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A good old couple! kind and wise!<br>And oh! what love for one another!<br>They've won, those two, life's highest prize,<br>Oh! let us copy them, my brother.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=James+Kenneth+Stephen">James Kenneth Stephen</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=415910" data-title="After the Golden Wedding (Three Soliloquies) de James Kenneth Stephen" data-description="I. The husband's. She's not a faultless woman; no! She's not an angel in disguise: She has her rivals here below: She's not an unexampled prize: She does not always see the point Of little jests her husband makes: And, when the world is out of ..."></div> </div> </div>

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