NOTE:
I downloaded this poem from another location on the internet, so I'm assuming that I'm not breaking any copyright laws. IF I AM, please email me and I'll take this offline.
Now, enjoy the poem.
"The Betrothed"
Rudyard Kipling
"You must choose between me and your cigar."
Open the old cigar box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.
We quarrelled about Havanas, we fought o'er a good cheroot,
And I know she is exacting, and says I am a brute.
Open the old cigar box, let me consider a space;
In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie's face.
Maggie is pretty to look at, Maggie's a loving lass,
But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must
pass.
There's peace in a Laranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay,
But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away
Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the
town!
Maggie, my wife at fifty, gray and dour and old
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!
And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that
Are,
And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead
cigar
The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket
With never a new one to 'light tho' it's charred and black to the
socket.
Open the old cigar box, let me consider awhile
Here is a mild Manilla, there is a wifely smile.
Which is the better portion: bondage bought with a ring,
Or a harem of dusky beauties fifty tied in a string?
Counsellers cunning and silent, comforters true and tried,
And never a one of the fifty sneer at a rival bride.
Though in the early morning, solace in times of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.
This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,
Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.
The furrows of far off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,
When they hear my harem is empty, will send me my brides again.
I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths
withal,
So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.
I will scent'em with the best Vanilla, with tea will I temper
their hides,
And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my
brides.
For Maggie has written a letter that gives me my choice between
The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o'Teen.
And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelve month
clear,
But I have been Priest of Partagas a matter of seven year;
And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery
light
Of stumps that I burned to Freindship and Pleasure and Work and
Fight.
And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,
But the only light on the marshes is the Will o'the Wisp of Love.
Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the
mire?
Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful
fire?
Open the old cigar box let me consider anew
Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?
A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a cigar is a Smoke.
Light me another Cuba I hold to my first sworn vows,
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse!