Poem by Robert Burns

The Joyful Widower

I MARRIED with a scolding wife
  The fourteenth of November;
She made me weary of my life,
  By one unruly member.
Long did I bear the heavy yoke,
  And many griefs attended;
But, to my comfort be it spoke,
  Now, now her life is ended.

We lived full one-and-twenty years
  A man and wife together;
At length from me her course she steer’d.
  And gone I know not whither:
Would I could guess! I do profess,
  I speak, and do not flatter,
Of all the women in the world,
  I never would come at her.

Her body is bestowed well,
  A handsome grave does hide her;
But sure her soul is not in hell,
  The deil would ne’er abide her.
I rather think she is aloft,
  And imitating thunder;
For why,-methinks I hear her voice
  Tearing the clouds asunder.

1. Sleep’st Thou, or Wak’st Thou
2. It Is Na, Jean, Thy Bonnie Face
3. Simmer’s a Pleasant Time
4. Fairest Maid on Devon Banks
5. The Bonnie Wee Thing

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