The Poet and His Wife

Poet:

Behold the Spring is here!

I know it by the clean

And verduous veneer

That brightens Stephen's Green.

Away! I fain would fare

Where dewy leaves expand

And weave in sunny air

Their dances o'er the land!

His Wife

How can your hopes be such

As gain by getting gone

Where Spring produces much

The same phenomenon?

The leaves make here a shade,

The pleasant air is scented

And there is the Cascade:

Why are you not contented?

Poet:

Where Tolka water fawns

It makes its little pond white,

But this of Ardilaun's

Is passing through a conduit

Besides where all is change

From Winter black to green.

A poet needs to range

To meet the change of scene.

His Wife

Beauty with Swiftness goes

And Spring with those elopers:

But where the Tolka flows

There stands "The Jolly Topers."

And though I love you Dear,

Who am so long your bride,

I love you when sincere

But not when "bonafied."