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[SIZE=+1]The Betrothed[/SIZE][/TD]
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“You must choose between me and your cigar.” Breach of Promise Case, circa, 1885
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O[SIZE=-1]PEN[/SIZE] the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,[/TD]
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[TD]For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.[/TD]
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[TD]We quarrelled about Havanas—we fought o’er a good cheroot,[/TD]
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[TD]And
I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.[/TD]
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[TD]Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a space;[/TD]
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[TD]In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie’s face.[/TD]
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[TD]Maggie is pretty to look at—Maggie’s a loving lass,[/TD]
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[TD]But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.[/TD]
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[TD]There’s peace in a Laranaga, there’s calm in a Henry Clay;[/TD]
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[TD]But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away—[/TD]
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[TD]Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown—[/TD]
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[TD]But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o’ the talk o’ the town![/TD]
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[TD]Maggie, my wife at fifty—grey and dour and old—[/TD]
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[TD]With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold![/TD]
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[TD]And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,[/TD]
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[TD]And Love’s torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar—[/TD]
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[TD]The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket—[/TD]
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[TD]With never a new one to light tho’ it’s charred and black to the socket![/TD]
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[TD]Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a while.[/TD]
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[TD]Here is a mild Manilla—there is a wifely smile.[/TD]
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[TD]Which is the better portion—bondage bought with a ring,[/TD]
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[TD]Or a harem of dusky beauties fifty tied in a string?[/TD]
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[TD]Counsellors cunning and silent—comforters true and tried,[/TD]
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[TD]And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?[/TD]
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[TD]Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,[/TD]
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[TD]Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,[/TD]
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[TD]This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,[/TD]
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[TD]With only a
Suttee’s passion—to do their duty and burn.[/TD]
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[TD]This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,[/TD]
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[TD]Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.[/TD]
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[TD]The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,[/TD]
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[TD]When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.[/TD]
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[TD]I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,[/TD]
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[TD]So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.[/TD]
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[TD]I will scent ’em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,[/TD]
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[TD]And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.[/TD]
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[TD]For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between[/TD]
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[TD]The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o’ Teen.[/TD]
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[TD]And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,[/TD]
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[TD]But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;[/TD]
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[TD]And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light[/TD]
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[TD]Of stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.[/TD]
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[TD]And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,[/TD]
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[TD]But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o’-the-Wisp of Love.[/TD]
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[TD]Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?[/TD]
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[TD]Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?[/TD]
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[TD]Open the old cigar-box—let me consider anew—[/TD]
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[TD]Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon
you?[/TD]
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[TD]A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;[/TD]
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[TD]And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.[/TD]
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[TD]Light me another Cuba—I hold to my first-sworn vows.[/TD]
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[TD]If Maggie will have no rival, I’ll have no Maggie for Spouse![/TD]
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