XII. On the Same

XI. On a Henpecked Country Squire.

[Though satisfied with the severe satire of these lines, the poet made a second attempt.]

As father Adam first was fool’d,
A case that’s still too common,
Here lies a man a woman rul’d,
The devil rul’d the woman.

[The second attempt did not in Burns’s fancy exhaust this fruitful subject: he tried his hand again.]

O Death, hadst thou but spared his life,
Whom we this day lament,
We freely wad exchang’d the wife,
And a’ been weel content!

Ev’n as he is, cauld in his graff,
The swap we yet will do’t;
Take thou the carlin’s carcase aff,
Thou’se get the soul to boot.