How The Helpmate Of Blue-Beard Made Free With A Door

A maiden from the Bosphorus,     With eyes as bright as phosphorus,     Once wed the wealthy bailiff     Of the caliph     Of Kelat.     Though diligent and zealous, he     Became a slave to jealousy.     (Considering her beauty,     'Twas his duty     To be that!)     When business would necessitate     A journey, he would hesitate,     But, fearing to disgust her,     He would trust her     With his keys,     Remarking to her prayerfully:     "I beg you'll use them carefully.     Don't look what I deposit     In that closet,     If you please."     It may be mentioned, casually,     That blue as lapis lazuli     He dyed his hair, his lashes,     His mustaches,     And his beard.     And, just because he did it, he     Aroused his wife's timidity:     Her terror she dissembled,     But she trembled     When he neared.     This feeling insalubrious     Soon made her most lugubrious,     And bitterly she missed her     Elder sister     Marie Anne:     She asked if she might write her to     Come down and spend a night or two,     Her husband answered rightly     And politely:     "Yes, you can!"     Blue-Beard, the Monday following,     His jealous feeling swallowing,     Packed all his clothes together     In a leather-      Bound valise,     And, feigning reprehensibly,     He started out, ostensibly     By traveling to learn a     Bit of Smyrna      And of Greece.     His wife made but a cursory     Inspection of the nursery;     The kitchen and the airy     Little dairy     Were a bore,     As well as big or scanty rooms,     And billiard, bath, and ante-rooms,     But not that interdicted     And restricted     Little door!     For, all her curiosity     Awakened by the closet he     So carefully had hidden,     And forbidden     Her to see,     This damsel disobedient     Did something inexpedient,     And in the keyhole tiny     Turned the shiny     Little key:     Then started back impulsively,     And shrieked aloud convulsively--     Three heads of girls he'd wedded     And beheaded     Met her eye!     And turning round, much terrified,     Her darkest fears were verified,     For Blue-Beard stood behind her,     Come to find her     On the sly!     Perceiving she was fated to     Be soon decapitated, too,     She telegraphed her brothers     And some others     What she feared.     And Sister Anne looked out for them,     In readiness to shout for them     Whenever in the distance     With assistance     They appeared.     But only from her battlement     She saw some dust that cattle meant.     The ordinary story     Isn't gory,     But a jest.     But here's the truth unqualified.     The husband wasn't mollified     Her head is in his bloody     Little study     With the rest!     The Moral: Wives, we must allow,     Who to their husbands will not bow,     A stern and dreadful lesson learn     When, as you've read, they're cut in turn.