| |
| JANE 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, | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| Her Assam monkey how to drink. | |
| He vexed her righteous soul until | |
| She went up, and he went down hill. | |
| |
| Then came the crisis, strange to say, | |
| Which turned a good wife to a better. | 20 |
| A telegraphic peon, one day, | |
| Brought her—now, had it been a letter | |
| For Belial Machiavelli, I | |
| Know Jane would just have let it lie— | |
| |
| But ’twas a telegram instead, | 25 |
| Marked “urgent,” and her duty plain | |
| To open it. Jane Austen read:— | |
| “Your Lilly’s got a cough again. | |
| “’Can’t understand why she is kept | |
| “At your expense.” Jane Austen wept. | 30 |
| |
| It was a misdirected wire, | |
| Her husband was at Shaitanpore. | |
| She spread her anger, hot as fire, | |
| Through six thin foreign sheets or more, | |
| Sent off that letter, wrote another | 35 |
| To her solicitor—and mother. | |
| |
| Then Belial Machiavelli saw | |
| Her error and, I trust, his own, | |
| Wired to the minion of the Law, | |
| And travelled wifeward—not alone. | 40 |
| For Lilly—thirteen-two and bay— | |
| Came in a horse-box all the way. | |
| |
| There was a scene—a weep or two— | |
| With many kisses. Austen Jane | |
| Rode Lilly all the season through, | 45 |
| And never opened wires again. | |
| She races now with Belial … This | |
| Is very sad, but so it is. | |
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