IV.
I DON’T feel like I used to feel no more;
It seems as though I’d like to go away
From where the racket’s goin’ on all day,
And have her with me there, and she’d be sore
At that rich dude who meets her at the door
Back by the stage when she’s got through the play:
I wish that she’d get sweet on me and say
She never knew what lovin’ was before.
I’ve got a tooth-brush now, and every night
I wash my neck and ears: I don’t intend
To chew tobacco any more, nor spend
My change fer cigarettes; her teeth are white,
And if she seen that mine were, too, she might
Be liable to love me. Every time
She looks at me it kind of seems that I’m
All full of something tickel-ish and light.
I’d like it if I knew some way to make
My ears stay closer to my head and not
Stick out the way they do, as though they’d got
Unfastened and hung loose. I wish I’d wake
To-morrow so good-lookin’ it would break
Her heart unless I’d take her on the spot;
And I could lick that dude if he got hot
And made rough house when she’d give him the shake.
If I could go away with her to where
There wasn’t anybody else at all,
And we could set around all day or loll
Beside the cricks and never have to care
When bells would ring, and all around us there
The posies would be growin’ sweet and tall,
I’d never mind if it was spring or fall—
But still I s’pose she couldn’t live on air.