WHY I DON'T.

Otago Witness, Issue 2205, 4 June 1896, Page 43

WHY I DON'T.

£ Bachelor's Plea. •■ „ I was eleepingj gladly sleeping, From the carea of Love set freo } I was reaping, justly reaping, Kesfc which Labour gave to me. I had serenaded Mary Whea the frost was on the trees | Cooed and called her queen and fairy Till my voice was like a wheeze. I took every sea Eon cropping TTp to tell her of my woe ; I was popping, always popping, From St. Clair to Opoho— 'Midst romantic moonlipht roaming^ 'Neath bright sunlight's silver ray, Where the ocean sighed its moaning-* But she always said me nay. Therefore was it I waß sleeping Like a man who'd canificrbneka, Eulogistic prayers heaping On the rest of ninty-six ; But Fd hardly started dreaming, Hidden deep beneath the clotKes, When a phantom woke me, screamlns Loudly, "Why don't men propose?" I was lively in a minute With a pain like soldiers feel When they find a spot, and in it An inch of cruel steel, I— who wasted tons of leather In pursuit of flighty Love ; I — who learned to ecorn the weather And whisper like a dove | I— who spent three annum*s wages Adding fuel to my woea (Bind me in your strongest cages I)— ito requested to " propose I I believe if s $h$ that's writing j Since I've gone she'B learned regret, And for Low again is fighting By the aid ol " Cigarette." But I'm going— yea, I'm goinjr, To the rest from which I came ; And I do not mind her knowing That I'm weary of the game. Sad my heart (her vision haunts it)— Sadder still it daily grows ; But if " Darling Mary ? ' wants it, Why, then, Maiy must propose I Jay 20. Monomaniac.