Feminine Arithmetic
Laura
ON me he shall ne’er put a ring,
So, mamma, ’tis in vain to take trouble—
For I was but eighteen in spring,
While his age exactly is double.
Mamma
He’s but in his thirty-sixth year,
Tall, handsome, good-natured and witty,
And should you refuse him, my dear,
May you die an old maid without pity!
Laura
His figure, I grant you, will pass,
And at present he’s young enough plenty;
But when I am sixty, alas!
Will not he be a hundred and twenty?
Charles Graham Halpine.