What's worth doing at all's worth doing well,
And the sale of a young Manhattan belle
Is not to be pushed or hastened;
So two Very-Reverends graced the scene,
And the tall Archbishop stood between,
By prayer and fasting chastened;
The Pope himself would have come from Rome,
But Garibaldi kept him at home.
Haply those robed prelates thought
Their words were the power that tied the knot;
But another power that love-knot tied,
And I saw the chain round the neck of the bride--
A glistening, priceless, marvelous chain,
Coiled with diamonds again and again,
As befits a diamond wedding;
Yet still 'twas a chain, and I thought she knew it,
And half-way longed for the will to undo it,
By the secret tears she was shedding.

But isn't it odd to think, whenever
We all go through that terrible River--
Whose sluggish tide alone can sever
(The Archbishop says) the Church decree,
By floating one into Eternity
And leaving the other alive as ever--
As each wades through that ghastly stream,
The satins that rustle and gems that gleam,
Will grow pale and heavy, and sink away
To the noisome River's bottom-clay!
Then the costly bride and her maidens six,