Nervous Prostration

I MARRIED a man of the Croydon class When I was twenty-two. And I vex him, and he bores me Till we don't know what to do!

It isn't good form in the Croydon class To say you love your wife, So I spend my days with the tradesmen's books And pray for the end of life.

In green fields are blossoming trees And a golden wealth of gorse. And young birds sing for joy of worms: It's perfectly clear, of course,

That it wouldn't be taste in the Croydon class To sing over dinner or tea: But I sometimes wish the gentleman Would turn and talk to me!

But every man of the Croydon class Lives in terror of joy and speech. " Words are betrayers," " Joys are brief "- The maxims their wise ones teach —

And for all my labour of love and life I shall be clothed and fed. And they'll give me an orderly funeral When I'm still enough to be dead.

I married a man of the Croydon class When I was twenty-two. And I vex him, and he bores me Till we don't know what to do!

And as I sit in his ordered house, I feel I must sob or shriek. To force a man of the Croydon class To live, or to love, or to speak!