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Aesop, in Rhyme

THE SOT AND HIS WIFE.

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THE SOT AND HIS WIFE.

Inveterate sin is seldom cur'd.

A wife had long a sot endur'd,

Who all his time in taverns spent,

While his affairs in ruin went.

Once as insensible he lay,

She dress'd him in a corpse's array,

And with the undertaker's aid,

Into a burying vault convey'd.

The fumes dispersed, the man awakes;

All for reality he takes.

When by the glimmering of a lamp

He saw his mansion drear and damp,

Reflecting how his life had pass'd,

A forced repentance came at last.

The wife, with suited voice and dress,

Presented an infernal mess:

"Good Trap, pray take away your meat;

I have no appetite to eat,"

He cried, "but faith I'm devilish dry:

Can't you a bowl of wine supply?"

The woman, seeing all was vain,

Restor'd him to his casks again:

Consol'd with certainty, that he

Ere long a real corpse must be.

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