stieve as stane--
The limmer's growin' young again,
Since she got her annuity.

She's crined' awa' to bane and skin,
But that, it seems, is nought to me;
She's like to live--although she's in
The last stage o' tenuity.
She munches wi' her wizen'd gums,
An' stumps about on legs o' thrums;
But comes, as sure as Christmas comes,
To ca' for her annuity.

I read the tables drawn wi' care
For an insurance company;
Her chance o' life was stated there,
Wi' perfect perspicuity.
But tables here or tables there,
She's lived ten years beyond her share,
An' 's like to live a dozen mair,
To ca' for her annuity.

Last Yule she had a fearfu' host,
I thought a kink might set me free--
I led her out, 'mang snaw and frost,
Wi' constant assiduity.
But deil ma' care--the blast gaed by,
And miss'd the auld anatomy--
It just cost me a tooth, for bye
Discharging her annuity.

If there's a' sough o' cholera,
Or typhus,--wha sae gleg as she?
She buys up baths, an' drugs, an' a',
In siccan superfluity!
She doesna need--she's fever proof--
The pest walked o'er her very roof--
She tauld me sae--an' then her loof
Held out for her annuity.

Ae day she fell, her arm she brak--
A compound fracture as could be--
Nae leech the cure wad undertake,
Whate'er was the gratuity.
It's cured! She handles 't like a flail--
It does as weel in bits as hale--
But I'm a broken man mysel'
Wi' her and her annuity.

Her broozled flesh and broken banes
Are weel as flesh and banes can be.
She beats the taeds that live in stanes,
An' fatten in vacuity!
They die when they're exposed to air--
They canna thole the atmosphere;
But her!--expose her onywhere--
She lives for her annuity.

If mortal means could nick her thread,
Sma' crime it wad appear to me;
Ca't murder, or ca't homicide,
I'd justify 't--an' do it tae.
But how to fell a withered wife
That's carved out o' the tree o' life--
The timmer limmer daurs the knife
To settle her annuity.

I'd try a shot: but whar's the mark?--
Her vital parts are hid frae me;
Her backbane wanders through her sark
In an unkenn'd corkscrewity.
She's palsified--an shakes her head
Sae fast about, ye scarce can see;
It's past the power o' steel or lead
To settle her annuity.

She might be drowned--but go she'll not
Within a mile o' loch or sea;
Or hanged--if cord could grip a throat
O' siccan exiguity.
It's fitter far to hang the rope--
It draws