Volume 156 — THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.

I thought the cruel wound was whole Which left my inside so dyspeptic; That Time had salved this tortured soul, Time and Oblivion's antiseptic; That thirty years (the period since You showed a preference for Another) Had fairly schooled me not to wince At being treated like a brother. When last I saw the shape I wooed In coils of adipose embedded, Fondling its eldest offspring's brood (The image of the Thing you wedded), I placed my hand upon the seat Of those affections you had riven And gathered from its steady beat That your offence had been forgiven. And now, to my surprise and pain, Long past the stage of convalescence, The wound has broken out again With symptoms of pronounced putrescence; And, from the spot where once was laid Your likeness treasured in a locket, The trouble threatens to invade A tenderer place—my trouser pocket. For AUSTEN (such is rumour's tale), Faced with a rude financial deadlock, Is bent on mulcting every male Who shirks the privilege of wedlock; With such a hurt Time cannot deal, And Lethe here affords no tonic; Nothing but Death can hope to heal What looks as if it must be chronic. And yet a solace soothes my brow, Making my air a shade less gloomy:— Six shillings in the pound is now The figure out of which they do me; But, were we man and wife to-day (So close the Treasury loves to link 'em), A grievous super-tax they'd lay On our coagulated income. I dare not even try to guess What is the charge for being single; It may be more, it may be less Than if we twain had chanced to mingle; But though with thrice as heavy a fist They fall on bachelors to bleed 'em Yet, when I think of what I've missed, I'll gladly pay the cost of Freedom. O.S.