My wedded life <br />Must every pleasure bring <br />On scale extensive! <br />If I'm your wife <br />I must have everything <br />That's most expensive - <br />A lady's-maid - <br />(My hair alone to do <br />I am not able) - <br />And I'm afraid <br />I've been accustomed to <br />A first-rate table. <br />These things one must consider when one marries - <br />And everything I wear must come from Paris! <br />Oh, think of that! <br />Oh, think of that! <br />I can't wear anything that's not from Paris! <br />From top to toes <br />Quite Frenchified I am, <br />If you examine. <br />And then - who knows? - <br />Perhaps some day a fam - <br />Perhaps a famine! <br />My argument's correct, if you examine, <br />What should we do, if there should come a f-famine! <br /> <br />Though in green pea <br />Yourself you needn't stint <br />In July sunny, <br />In Januaree <br />It really costs a mint - <br />A mint of money! <br />No lamb for us - <br />House lamb at Christmas sells <br />At prices handsome: <br />Asparagus, <br />In winter, parallels <br />A Monarch's ransom: <br />When purse to bread and butter barely reaches, <br />What is your wife to do for hot-house peaches? <br />Ah! tell me that! <br />Ah! tell me that! <br />What IS your wife to do for hot-house peaches? <br />Your heart and hand <br />Though at my feet you lay, <br />All others scorning! <br />As matters stand, <br />There's nothing now to say <br />Except - good morning! <br />Though virtue be a husband's best adorning, <br />That won't pay rates and taxes - so, good morning!<br /><br />William Schwenck Gilbert<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/her-terms/
