Say how, with such an iceberg on the track,
Can I conduct my car to married bliss? 
I hoped that I could whistle Pansy back,
And lo!  I got a frostbite off of this! 
I’d wrastle Death for Her, I’d fight her Pa, —
But stab me if I’ll syrup to her Ma!

XIV

E’en as I stood with cobwebs in my tower
A candy vision came and flagged the boat —
Give forty rah-rah-rahs!  O joy, O gloat! 
’Twas Pansy like a fairy in a bower
Warbling, “Hi, stop the car!” With all my power
I yanked the bell.  My brain was all afloat,
My heart cut pin-wheels, stole a base at throat,
Sang “Tammany” — and knighthood was in flower.

I helped her on.  My shoes were full of feet. 
I says, “How’s Ma?” She answers, “Going some.” 
I doffed my lid and ventured to repeat
The breeze had put the weather on the bum. 
Then she replied, not seeming sore or vexed,
“It may not be so punk on Sunday next.”

XV

The Sinful Rich go whizzing by all day
In wealthy wagons, looking pert and swell;
They get the ride, the Commons get the smell
And full of thought and microbes wend their way. 
Maxy the Firebug says that Mammon’s sway
Is stringing Virtue to a fare-ye-well,
But wait, he says, till Labor with a yell
Soaks Mam a crack forninst the vertebray.

The Rich, says Max, are simply dips and yeggs
That lift the headlight beads from yaps like us;
They pinch your pie, sew up our ham and eggs
And leave us minus all that they are plus. 
The world, says Max, belongs to me and Bill
And Mrs. Casey — whoa! let’s roll a pill!

XVI

At Mrs. Casey’s hunger-killing shop
Whither I hie thrice daily for my stew,
I dream I’m Mr. Waldorf as I chew
My prunes or lay my Boston-baked on top. 
Growley and sinkers, slum and mutton sop,
India-rubber jelly known as “glue,”
A soup-bone goulash with a spud or two,
Clatter below until I signal “Stop!”

There may be chefs in France or Albany
Can knock a poem from a wedge of pie;
But just give me a check on Mrs. C.,
For rapid-filling ballast, murmurs I.
Kings may prefer some tasty wads of hash,
But they don’t feed at fifteen cents per crash!

XVII

Pansy and me for Coney Sunday noon
To see a perfect lady bump the bumps;
We rubbered at the lions with the chumps
And took the Wellman special to the moon. 
She asks me, “Dance?” I answers, “Just as soon,”
And so we clutched and whirled into the gumps,
But every time I went to stir my stumps
They stuck like gum-drops to a macaroon.

“I could die dancing, Danny!” murmurs she. 
(I gambolled on her corns, she hollered, “Don’t!”)
“I could die dancing also” (this from me),”
“But if you’ll pass me up, I guess I won’t.” 
Just then some lemon-sport observed my glide
And warbled, “Slide, you frozen chicken, slide!”