Explore "A Paraphrase, Ostensibly by Dr. I. W" by Eugene Field on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Why, Mistress Chloe, do you bother / With prattlings and with vain ado / Your worthy and industrious mother, / Eschewing them that come to woo?
Oh, that the awful truth might quicken / This stern conviction to your breast: / You are no longer now a chicken / Too young to quit the parent nest.
So put aside your froward carriage / And fix your thoughts, whilst yet there's time, / Upon the righteousness of marriage / With some such godly man as I'm.