Robert Burns (1759–1796). Poems and Songs.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
245 . Versicles on Sign-Posts
C
The crouching vassal to a tyrant wife!
Who has no will but by her high permission,
Who has not sixpence but in her possession;
Who must to he, his dear friend’s secrets tell,
Were such the wife had fallen to my part, I’d break her spirit or I’d break her heart; I’d charm her with the magic of a switch, I’d kiss her maids, and kick the perverse b——h.