WITH SINCERE CONFIDENCE TO THE WIFE

It will surely happen:

 I will have browned,

 rock-hard potato skins and worn,

 drought-riddled biscuits

 for my daily and only meal!

 People will laugh with useless

 ruthlessness,

 trample me underfoot,

 and with no regard for humanity,

 with the product of their tongues,

 scornfully and gallantly brand me!

 

My blessed wife will

 kiss my ever-thinking brain,

 and my hairy bushy hands,

 and I shall see through

 the mirrors of my soul how much 

with tender merciful tact,

 and with more honourable grace,

 that her husband's lot is now hard,

 and instead of fighting complaints,

 and constant demands

 for money and reckoning,

 she will spread her two sanctified

 wing-arms with the harmonies

 of tranquillity,

 that I may rock to a soothing

 sleep on her mother's lap

 the ever-shy and skittering
 skull of my ever-shy
 and skittering skull!

And then the world,

 what my fake shame

 and law shall inflict on me,

 my spouse's backbone

 of humanity and human

 standing shall send back

 in one mighty stroke

 as a gracious message

 to the evil-doers! 

We shall live,

 if only with a few morsels,

 and poorly,

 but with a persevering

 will to honour each other,

 and to lead each other

 through all horrors and troubles!

 I can only hope

 that our loves will

 endure the long arsenal of trials!