I have fumed, like champagne that is fizzy,
To pay my respects at your door.
But the publishers keep one so busy.
Forgive my not calling before!
Karlene, you're a very small lady
To venture so far all alone;
Especially into so shady
A place as this planet has grown.
When I now, my dear, was at your age,
When nobody tried to be rich,
But lived on high thinking and porridge
(And didn't know t' other from which!),
For a girl to go out unattended
Was considered "not only unwise
And improper--" Our grandmothers ended
By lifting to heaven their eyes.
And yet even now, though it's shocking
To slander these wonderful years,
I dare say an inch of black stocking
Could set all the world by the ears.
Black, mind you, not blue! It's a trifle;
But trifling in stockings won't do;
For love has an eye like a rifle
(His bandage is slipping askew).
But there! You are simply too charming.
No doubt you'll be modern enough
(Though the speed of the world is alarming)
To win with a delicate bluff,
As we say when we're raking the chips in,
On a hand that was not over strong--
But I see you are pursing your lips in;
Perhaps I am prating too long.
Anyhow you'll be learned in isms,
And talk pterodactyls in French,
And know polyhedrons from prisms,--
Though you may not know how to retrench.
You will fall out of love with digamma
To fall in again with Delsarte;
You will make a new Syriac grammar,
And know all the popes off by heart.