So bluff Sir Leolin gave the bride away:

     And when they married her, the little church

     Had seldom seen a costlier ritual.

     The coach and pair alone were two-pound-ten,

     And two-pound-ten apiece the wedding-cakes;—

     Three wedding-cakes. A Cupid poised a-top

     Of each hung shivering to the frosted loves

     Of two fond cushats on a field of ice,

     As who should say 'I see you!'—Such the joy

     When English-hearted Edwin swore his faith

     With Mariana of the Moated Grange.

     For Edwin, plump head-waiter at The Cock,

     Grown sick of custom, spoilt of plenitude,

     Lacking the finer wit that saith,

    'I wait, They come; and if I make them wait, they go,'

     Fell in a jaundiced humour petulant-green,

     Watched the dull clerk slow-rounding to his cheese,

     Flicked a full dozen flies that flecked the pane—

     All crystal-cheated of the fuller air,

     Blurted a free 'Good-day t'ye,' left and right,

     And shaped his gathering choler to this head:—

    'Custom! And yet what profit of it all?

     The old order changeth yielding place to new,

     To me small change, and this the Counter-change

     Of custom beating on the self-same bar—

     Change out of chop. Ah me! the talk, the tip,

     The would-be-evening should-be-mourning suit,

     The forged solicitude for petty wants

     More petty still than they,—all these I loathe,

     Learning they lie who feign that all things come

     To him that waiteth. I have waited long,

     And now I go, to mate me with a bride

     Who is aweary waiting, even as I!'

     But when the amorous moon of honeycomb

     Was over, ere the matron-flower of Love—

     Step-sister of To-morrow's marmalade—

     Swooned scentless, Mariana found her lord

     Did something jar the nicer feminine sense

     With usage, being all too fine and large,

     Instinct of warmth and colour, with a trick

     Of blunting 'Mariana's' keener edge

     To 'Mary Ann'—the same but not the same:

     Whereat she girded, tore her crisped hair,

     Called him 'Sir Churl,' and ever calling 'Churl!'

     Drave him to Science, then to Alcohol,

     To forge a thousand theories of the rocks,

     Then somewhat else for thousands dewy cool,

     Wherewith he sought a more Pacific isle

     And there found love, a duskier love than hers.