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When I Was a Bachelor (Nursery Rhyme)

Summary

This nursery rhyme humorously recounts the experiences of a bachelor who lived alone and encountered a pest problem with rats and mice consuming his food. To resolve his predicament, he travels to London to find a wife, implying marriage as a solution to his domestic troubles. However, upon returning home with his new wife, he encounters misadventures due to the poor condition of the streets and narrow lanes, resulting in the wheelbarrow carrying his wife breaking and causing them both to fall. The rhyme uses playful and exaggerated scenarios to illustrate the challenges and mishaps one might face in domestic life, often causing laughter with its unexpected turns.

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When I was a bachelor I lived by myself,
And all the bread and cheese I got I laid upon the shelf;
The rats and the mice, they made such a strife,
I had to go to London to buy me a wife.

The streets were so bad and the lanes were so narrow,
I was forced to bring my wife home in a wheelbarrow.
The wheelbarrow broke and my wife had a fall;
Down came wheelbarrow, little wife and all.

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