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"?"
by Robert W. Service
Collected in Rhymes of a Rolling Stone


“?”

If you had the choice of two women to wed,
(Though of course the idea is quite absurd)
And the first from her heels to her dainty head
Was charming in every sense of the word:
And yet in the past (I grieve to state),
She never had been exactly “straight”,.

And the second — she was beyond all cavil,
A model of virtue, I must confess;
And yet, alas! she was dull as the devil,
And rather a dowd in the way of dress;
Though what she was lacking in wit and beauty,
She more than made up for in “sense of duty”,.

Now, suppose you must wed, and make no blunder,
And either would love you, and let you win her —
Which of the two would you choose, I wonder,
The stolid saint or the sparkling sinner?


PD-icon.svg This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923.

The author died in 1958, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 50 years or less.


This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.