Such wretched and dinnerless bachelor lives;
You don't know the pleasure there is in the tingle
Of ears pricked by lectures, la curtain, au Caudle,
Or noise of young Dinewells beginning to toddle;
While plodding all day with your paper and quills,
And copy, and proof sheets, and work for the printer,
Pray what do you know of the housekeeper's bills,
And other such 'pleasures of hope' for the winter?

You men, selfish creatures, think all of the care
Of living and keeping yourselves in existence,
Is due to your own daily labor, and share,
From breakfast to dinner of business persistance;
While woman is either a plaything or drudge,
According to station of wealth or position,
Which men help along with a word or a nudge
To heaven high up or low down to perdition.

But what was I saying of a world free from care,
Of eating and drinking and dresses to wear?

Where women by husbands are never tormented,
And never asked money where husbands dissented?
And never see others, their rivals, in fashion ahead,
And never have doctors--a woman's great dread--
And nothing, I hope, like my own indigestion,
To torment and starve them, as this one does me,
And keep them from sipping--forgive the suggestion--
The nectar etherial they drink for their tea.