A contribution by Andrew Slade - "The Disillusioned Bride"
I came across this MS poem in a National Trust House at the weekend; attributed 2 Jane Taylor (1783-1824) "The Lavenham poetess". But it might as well b entitled "The Disillusioned Husband", written at the height of the Age of Romanticism: unrealistic expectations unrealised!
Please post it under my real name,
THE DISILLUSIONED BRIDE
The twentieth week is well-nigh past,
Since first in Church we two were asked:
Oh! Would we had not gone at last.
=My husband.
Thy kindness has a fainter blow,
I see thee daily cooler grow,
How canst thou bear to serve me so?
=My husband.
And when sometimes thou wouldst fulfill
Some little office for me still,
Thy love now seconds not thy will.
=My husband.
Safely thou showest a tyrant's heart,
For Hymen's thread with cruel art
Hath bound us so we must not part.
=My husband.
Thy unpolite expressions seem
With no affection now to team
And never are my charms the theme.
=My husband.
Thy frowning eyes once mildly bright,
Oh! now more frightful in my sight
Than all the gloomy fiends of night.
=My husband.
Oh could I see nor them nor thee,
A happy creature I should be,
'Twould be a happy day for me.
=My husband.
Partaker of this strange decline,
My feelings too their warmth resign:
My flames can cool as well as thine.
=My husband.
Such feeble signs of love thou showest:
Thou does not love at all, thou knowest,
So don't pretend to say thou dost!
=My husband.
For me to love thus treated ill
Is quite beyond a woman's skill:
Indeed I neither can nor will.
=My husband.
But if much cooler thou dost grow,
Some proper spirit I shall show:
I will not long be treated so,
=My husband.
For should thy conduct still be cast
With much resemblance of the past,
I'll leave thee in the lurch at last.
=My husband.
A sad poem, I note. Chinese wisdom has it that husband and wife should always treat each other in the home as the other's honoured guest. Perhaps such a thing is only possible in the context of a Domestic Partnership, a concept I hope to pioneer and exploit commercially, in time, with the right sort of Domestic Partner.
Andromeda is still seeking her Perseus.
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