cynical about freedom as she is about everything else, nowhere more so than in the arena of romance. The poem uses the trope of a woman who choses the poor man whom she loves over the rich one who offers her prosperity and comfort. The references to "a lilting song" and "a melody, happy and high" in the first stanza suggest a poet or a musician, whom she chose over the man of substance, the landowner who would have showered jewels upon her.

The same contrast is repeated in the second stanza, in which the poor man has only to whistle for her to follow him, a rather more disturbing and degrading image in which the man seems to be the master and she the faithful hound. Even this image, however, does not prepare the reader for the bathos in the last line:

Somebody ought to examine my head!

The speaker has been given enough rope and now regrets her choice. If she had not been free; if, for instance, her parents had chosen a spouse for her, they might have selected more wisely. She may well have regretted their choice just as much, but at least she would have been able to do so in the lap of luxury. The poem therefore supports the idea in the title and gives a specific example of how it might work in practice.