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<h3>THE JOYFUL WIDOWER.</h3>
<p class="std1">Tune—“<i>Maggy Lauder.</i>”</p>
<p>[Most of this song is by Burns: his fancy was fierce with images of
matrimonial joy or infelicity, and he had them ever ready at the call
of the muse. It was first printed in the Musical Museum.]</p>
<p class="std2">I.</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I married with a scolding wife<br/></span>
<span class="i2">The fourteenth of November;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">She made me weary of my life,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">By one unruly member.<br/></span>
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</SPAN></span><span class="i0">Long did I bear the heavy yoke,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And many griefs attended;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">But to my comfort be it spoke,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Now, now her life is ended.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p class="std2">II.</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">We liv’d full one-and-twenty years<br/></span>
<span class="i2">A man and wife together;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">At length from me her course she steer’d,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And gone I know not whither:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Would I could guess, I do profess,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">I speak, and do not flatter,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of all the woman in the world,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">I never could come at her.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p class="std2">III.</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Her body is bestowed well,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">A handsome grave does hide her;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">But sure her soul is not in hell,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">The deil would ne’er abide her.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I rather think she is aloft,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And imitating thunder;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For why,—methinks I hear her voice<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Tearing the clouds asunder.<br/></span></div>
</div>
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