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Home  »  The Little Book of Society Verse  »  The Superfluous Man

Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922.

By. John Godfrey Saxe

The Superfluous Man

  • It is ascertained by inspection of the registers of many countries, that the uniform proportion of male to female births is as 21 to 20: accordingly, in respect to marriage, every 21st man is naturally superfluous.
  • Treatise on Population.


  • I LONG have been puzzled to guess,

    And so I have frequently said,

    What the reason could really be

    That I never have happened to wed;

    But now it is perfectly clear

    I am under a natural ban;

    The girls are already assigned,—

    And I’m a superfluous man!

    Those clever statistical chaps

    Declare the numerical run

    Of women and men in the world,

    Is Twenty to Twenty-and-one;

    And hence in the pairing, you see,

    Since wooing and wedding began,

    For every connubial score,

    They’ve got a superfluous man!

    By twenties and twenties they go,

    And giddily rush to their fate,

    For none of the number, of course,

    Can fail of a conjugal mate;

    But while they are yielding in scores

    To Nature’s inflexible plan,

    There’s never a woman for me,—

    For I’m a superfluous man!

    It is n’t that I am a churl,

    To solitude over-inclined;

    It is n’t that I am at fault

    In morals or manners or mind;

    Then what is the reason, you ask,

    I’m still with the bachelor-clan?

    I merely was numbered amiss,—

    And I’m a superfluous man!

    It is n’t that I am in want

    Of personal beauty or grace,

    For many a man with a wife

    Is uglier far in the face;

    Indeed, among elegant men

    I fancy myself in the van;

    But what is the value of that,

    When I’m a superfluous man?

    Although I am fond of the girls,

    For aught I could ever discern

    The tender emotion I feel

    Is one that they never return;

    ’T is idle to quarrel with fate,

    For, struggle as hard as I can,

    They’re mated already, you know,—

    And I’m a superfluous man!

    No wonder I grumble at times,

    With women so pretty and plenty,

    To know that I never was born

    To figure as one of the Twenty;

    But yet, when the average lot

    With critical vision I scan,

    I think it may be for the best

    That I’m a superfluous man!