Today I gave a serenade to Gill;
I says, “To put it pleasant you’re a screech,
Your smile would shoo the seagulls off the beach,
Your face would give Vesuvius a chill. 
You’re just what Mr. Shakespeare calls ’a pill
Trying to keep company with a peach.’ 
Now, if you want to answer with a speech,
Open your trap at once, or else lie still.”

But when I handed Gill the Grip this cluster
He simply clamped his language-mill down tight,
Strangled his guff and acted rather fluster
Although I’m sure I spoke to him polite. 
I guess that Mr. Gilly ain’t the kind
That understands when people talk refined.

X

Three days with sad skidoo have came and went,
Yet Pansy cometh nix to ride with me. 
I rubber vainly at the throng to see
Her golden locks — gee! such a discontent! 
Perhaps she’s beat it with some soapy gent —
Perhaps she’s promised Gill the Grip to be
His No. 1 till Death tolls “23!”
While I am Outsky in the supplement.

Now and anon some Lizzie flags the train
And I, poor dots, cry, “Rapture, it is her!”
Yet guess again — my hope is all in vain
And Pansy girl refuses to occur. 
If this keeps up I think I’ll finish swell
Among the jabbers in a padded cell.

XI

My Trolley hikes to Harlem p.d.q.,
And picks up pikers all along the beat. 
At six o’clock the aisles are full of feet,
The straps with fingers, and the entire zoo
Boils on the platform with a mad huroo
Reckless as Bronx mosquitoes after meat. 
The widow stands, the fat man gets the seat
And Satan smiles like Foxy M. Depew.

And as we hikes along I thinks, thinks I,
“The human race is like the ocean foam,
Roaring and discontented, peevish, fly — "
Say, why in blazes don’t they stay to home? 
This travel-sickness is a danger which
Keeps hoboes poor and corporations rich.

XII

Today I piped my future Ma-in-law. 
She got aboard my Pullman and she scared
Three babies into fits the way she glared. 
Rattle my baggage if I ever saw
A cracker-box to equal Mother’s jaw,
A hardwood-finish face all nailed and squared. 
She ossified the gripman when she stared —
And me?  Well, I was overcame with awe.

But, being Pansy’s Ma, ’t was up to me
To hand her something pit-a-pat and swell,
And so I says, “Hello, Queen Cherokee! 
What ho! for Pansy? hope she’s feeling well.” 
And Ma responds, a trifle tart but game,
“She minds her bizness — hope you feel the same.”

XIII

I don’t think Mother chalked me out to win,
To be the steady of her darling child. 
She thinks I am a kick-up, something wild,
And no sweet girl should wear my college pin. 
She thinks I’m some too piffly with my chin
And my soft prattle simply gets her riled. 
I’ve lost my keys with her, to put it mild,
I don’t belong, because I am not In.