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Portrait of Robert Burns
Robert Burns 1759–1796
245Poems and Songs. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

CURS’D be the man, the poorest wretch in life, 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, Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell. 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.

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