The Hunt Ball at Lord Badminton’s was where they met,
This sheltered English couple from the upper set.
His name was Percival Adolphus, hers Hortense,
And truth be told, both were astonishingly dense.

All education failed to shape her fluffy mind; 
In fact, her parents had despaired of ever chancing
Upon a man so small of brain he’d try romancing
Their witless girl, and see her just as sweet and kind.

For them, for her, the entry on the scene of Percy,
The chinless wonder, was a splendid, God-sent mercy.
They married when the snow was softly floating down,
And country-honeymooned remote from any town.

The cottage, rose-twined, old, of stone and thatch, they found
Was miles from anywhere—only some yokels round.
The newlweds had no desire to step outside.
They had a fire and coal; outdoors, a blizzard nighed.

Somehow they fathomed out exactly what to do,
And then they did it thoroughly, this dull-brained two.
Where both before had always been of purest habits,
They buckled down and went at it like frenzied rabbits.

It seems they had no notion of “enough’s enough”;
They just kept going, and they found they weren’t so duff
At this: it took a minimum of thinking skill,
And so they just kept going on and on, until...

Well, in the end the physical realities prevailed:
Dim Percy’s conjugal persistence sadly failed.
His smarting, hard-worked organ needed a suspension,
But of this fact his bird-brained bride heard not a mention.

Out Percy went a-walking, for a change of pace.
Well wrapped and muffled up against the bitter cold,
He passed a yokel with a crook and craggy face
Who said to him “Raw, innit?” — which Percy read as bold

And quite unnervingly clairvoyant. So he flushed
And walked some more, and soon passed by another local,
Who with a nod opined “Raw, innit?” Quite nonplussed
Our man now rounded on this strangely knowing yokel

And said to him “Well, yes, in fact it is! A lot!
Can you suggest a remedy? Or can you not?”
The local’s mode of speech was anything but brisk; he
Lengthily proposed warm milk well laced with whisky.

That seemed not strange at all to Percy’s plodding thought,
And back he went into the cottage, where he sought
The necessaries as prescribed; meanwhile, no portents
Of his bizarre impending action reached our Hortense.

Amazed, she came upon him in the act of dangling
His member in the steaming, milky glass; and strangling
A shriek, she gaped! She understood! She gasped and then,
“I see!” she said. “You fill it like a fountain-pen!”