My Angeline

She kept her secret well, oh, yes,         Her hideous secret well.     We together were cast, I knew not her past;         For how was I to tell?     I married her, guileless lamb I was;         I'd have died for her sweet sake.     How could I have known that my Angeline         Had been a Human Snake?     Ah, we had been wed but a week or two         When I found her quite a wreck:     Her limbs were tied in a double bow-knot         At the back of her swan-like neck.     No curse there sprang to my pallid lips,         Nor did I reproach her then;     I calmly untied my bonny bride         And straightened her out again.                         Refrain     My Angeline! My Angeline!     Why didst disturb my mind serene?     My well-beloved circus queen,     My Human Snake, my Angeline!     At night I'd wake at the midnight hour,         With a weird and haunted feeling,     And there she'd be, in her robe de nuit,         A-walking upon the ceiling.     She said she was being "the human fly,"         And she'd lift me up from beneath     By a section slight of my garb of night,         Which she held in her pearly teeth.     For the sweet, sweet sake of the Human Snake         I'd have stood this conduct shady;     But she skipped in the end with an old, old friend,         An eminent bearded lady.     But, oh, at night, when my slumber's light,         Regret comes o'er me stealing;     For I miss the sound of those little feet,         As they pattered along the ceiling.                         Refrain     My Angeline! My Angeline!     Why didst disturb my mind serene?     My well-beloved circus queen,     My Human Snake, my Angeline!