eve 's a stane;
The auld wife 's growing young again
Since she got her annuity.

She 's crined awa to bane an' 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.

She jokes her joke, an' cracks her crack,
As spunkie as a growin' flea;
An' there she sits upon my back
A livin' perpetuity.
She hurkles by her ingle side,
An' toasts an' tans her wrinkled hide;
Lord kens how lang she yet may bide
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.

I gat the loon that drew the deed,
We spell'd it ower richt carefully;
In vain he yerk'd his souple head
To find an ambiguity.
It 's dated, tested, a' complete;
The proper stamp, nae word delete;
And diligence, as on decreet,
May pass for her annuity.

* * * * *

I thought that grief might gar her quit,
Her only son was lost at sea;
But aff her wits behuved to flit
An' leave her in fatuity.
She threeps, an' threeps he 's livin' yet
For a' the tellin' she can get;
But catch the doited wife forget
To ca' for 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, and 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 undertak,
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 ca