Old Linda Neglects Her Appearance Poem by Francis Duggan

Old Linda neglects her appearance she seldom combs her scraggly gray hair
She just turned seventy in April and she doesn't seem to worry or care
What others think or say about her she says I am finished with men
My fourth husband left me for a younger woman in life and love 'tis hard to win.

She says I have raised seven children and men to my life came and went
I fell in and out of love so often but I am not one to lament
For what might have been but was not to four husbands I was a good wife
Good men are so rare as she well know but then one might say such is life.

From four different males she raised children and nowadays she lives on her own
Yet she'll tell you life is worth living the good and the bad times she's known
She smokes and she drinks a few red wines and life is a thing she enjoy
She says I have never been thirsty and of hunger I will not die.

She does not worry about her appearance of her one might say she is what you see
By life she does not feel embittered of worry and stress she is free
On nice days she sits in her verandah enjoying the warmth of the sunshine
And nothing she seems to like better than a cigarette and a glass of red wine.