To The Deceased Wife's Sister

    My dear Deceased Wife's Sister, -
    (The wife of my bosom being still happily amongst us,
    The above,
    As the learned might say,
    Is a misnomer.
    You, on the other hand,
    Are a Miss    -    - ,
    And I would not marry you
    To save myself from boiling oil.
    If I had wanted you
    I could have had you in the beginning.
    And if I had married you
    The wife of my bosom
    Would have been aunt to her own children, as it were.
    And in the event of your demise
    She would also have been
    My deceased wife's sister -
    Which is at once inconsequential and peculiar.
    A man cannot marry his deceased wife's sister
    Till she is dead.
    This is quite wrong.
    In my humble opinion
    It is also quite right.
    Anyway, we will close this parenthesis
    With the usual sign,
    And proceed along the primrose path
    Of business)
    As I have already remarked
    In my usual quaint way,
    A man cannot marry
    His deceased wife's sister
    Until she is dead.
    (By "she" of course I mean the man's wife.)
    The bishops declare
    That he cannot marry her anyhow
    (By "he" I mean the man,
    And by "her" of course
    The bishops mean
    The man's deceased wife's sister.
    I desire to be explicit on these points
    In order that we may avoid
    Ambiguity.)
    Well, my dear deceased wife's sister
    (Always remembering that Mrs.    -    -    is still alive),
    What is your view of matters?
    Do you really wish to marry me or not?
    Have you any opinions about Lord Hugh Cecil?
    If so,
    Kindly state them.
    Was he or was he not justified in demanding
    On Wednesday night
    That the word "Shame"
    Be put upon the record?
    If so, why not?
    If not, why so?
    My dear deceased wife's sister,
    Do not let us get confused.
    Let us clear our minds of Cecil.
    After all is said
    You are the Auntie of my children,
    And the great-niece of my wife's great-uncle,
    Not to say the sister-in-law of my children's father.
    Come along,
    Here are ducats,
    A ring,
    And a Canadian parson,
    Let us get married at once.
    Of course it is so sudden.
    It always is.
    And we have forgotten about Mrs.    -    -
    We always do.
    But I tell you here and now,
    And in good set terms,
    My dear deceased wife's sister,
    That if I wish to marry
    Either you or any more of your mother's daughters
    (Which Heaven forbid),
    I shall go to Canada or Australia
    And marry 'em.

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, born on July 21, 1865, was an English author, poet, journalist, and friend of major literary figures such as W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound. Crosland's writing encompassed a wide range of subjects, and he was known for his satirical works. His legacy includes a robust body of prose and poetry, which has been recognized for its wit and social critique. He died on December 23, 1924.

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

To The Private Member

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

Titanic

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

To The True-Born Briton

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

To The Chancellor Of The Exchequer

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Inscription (A Tale)

Sir John was entombed, and the crypt was closed, and she,
Like a soul that could meet no more the sight of the sun,
Inclined her in weepings and prayings continually,
As his widowed one.

And to pleasure her in her sorrow, and fix his name
As a memory Time's fierce frost should never kill,
She caused to be richly chased a brass to his fame,
Which should link them still;

For she bonded her name with his own on the brazen page,
As if dead and interred there with him, and cold, and numb,
(Omitting the day of her dying and year of her age
Till her end should come;)

And implored good people to pray "Of their Charytie
For these twaine Soules," yea, she who did last remain
Forgoing Heaven's bliss if ever with spouse should she
Again have lain.

...

Thomas Hardy

A Woman's Fancy

"Ah Madam; you've indeed come back here?
'Twas sad your husband's so swift death,
And you away! You shouldn't have left him:
It hastened his last breath."

"Dame, I am not the lady you think me;
I know not her, nor know her name;
I've come to lodge here a friendless woman;
My health my only aim."

She came; she lodged. Wherever she rambled
They held her as no other than
The lady named; and told how her husband
Had died a forsaken man.

So often did they call her thuswise
Mistakenly, by that man's name,
So much did they declare about him,
That his past form and fame

Grew on her, till she pitied his sorrow
As if she truly had been the cause
Yea, his deserter; and came to wonder
What mould of man he was.

"Tell me my ...

Thomas Hardy

To My Bride (Whoever She May Be)

Oh! little maid! (I do not know your name
Or who you are, so, as a safe precaution
I'll add) Oh, buxom widow! married dame!
(As one of these must be your present portion)
Listen, while I unveil prophetic lore for you,
And sing the fate that Fortune has in store for you.

You'll marry soon within a year or twain
A bachelor of circa two and thirty:
Tall, gentlemanly, but extremely plain,
And when you're intimate, you'll call him "BERTIE."
Neat dresses well; his temper has been classified
As hasty; but he's very quickly pacified.

You'll find him working mildly at the Bar,
After a touch at two or three professions,
From easy affluence extremely far,
A brief or two on Circuit "soup" at Sessions;
A pound or two from whist and backing horses,
And, say...

William Schwenck Gilbert

A Conversation At Dawn

He lay awake, with a harassed air,
And she, in her cloud of loose lank hair,
    Seemed trouble-tried
As the dawn drew in on their faces there.

The chamber looked far over the sea
From a white hotel on a white-stoned quay,
    And stepping a stride
He parted the window-drapery.

Above the level horizon spread
The sunrise, firing them foot to head
    From its smouldering lair,
And painting their pillows with dyes of red.

"What strange disquiets have stirred you, dear,
This dragging night, with starts in fear
    Of me, as it were,
Or of something evil hovering near?"

"My husband, can I have fear of you?
What should one fear from a man whom few,
    Or none, had matched
In that late long spell of delays undue!"

H...

Thomas Hardy

A Sunday Morning Tragedy

I bore a daughter flower-fair,
In Pydel Vale, alas for me;
I joyed to mother one so rare,
But dead and gone I now would be.

Men looked and loved her as she grew,
And she was won, alas for me;
She told me nothing, but I knew,
And saw that sorrow was to be.

I knew that one had made her thrall,
A thrall to him, alas for me;
And then, at last, she told me all,
And wondered what her end would be.

She owned that she had loved too well,
Had loved too well, unhappy she,
And bore a secret time would tell,
Though in her shroud she'd sooner be.

I plodded to her sweetheart's door
In Pydel Vale, alas for me:
I pleaded with him, pleaded sore,
To save her from her misery.

He frowned, and swore he could not wed,
Seven tim...

Thomas Hardy

Her Death And After

'Twas a death-bed summons, and forth I went
By the way of the Western Wall, so drear
On that winter night, and sought a gate -
The home, by Fate,
Of one I had long held dear.

And there, as I paused by her tenement,
And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,
I thought of the man who had left her lone -
Him who made her his own
When I loved her, long before.

The rooms within had the piteous shine
That home-things wear when there's aught amiss;
From the stairway floated the rise and fall
Of an infant's call,
Whose birth had brought her to this.

Her life was the price she would pay for that whine -
For a child by the man she did not love.
"But let that rest for ever," I said,
And bent my tread
To the chamber up above.

Thomas Hardy