From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, NewYork: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 31-32.
THE BALD BARD AND THE
MODERN MAIDEN
Where are the shy and gentle dears
We used to love in yesteryears,
With modest ways and sober views,
Whose skirts hung down to hide their shoes?
Yea, if in action or repose
By accident the skirt arose
To show a half an inch of hose,
Some sister warned them on the sly
Lest it might please a roving eye.
When school boards wished in days of yore
To oil the village school house floor,
The teacher kicked because her skirt
Was dragging in the greasy dirt;
But you can bet your bottom dollar
The modern schoolma’am does not holler.
The bard was wont in other years
To praise his lady’s shell-like ears;
The best girl of the modern poet
May still have ears but he don’t know it.
The modern maid is oft a peach,
E’en though her ears are out of reach.
She may be gentle and refined,
[32]
E’en though her cheeks are calcimined.
She has her reasons too, no doubt,
For pulling half her eye-brows out.
I’m glad I am not married to her,
Yet gladly give the praises due her.
In every look and act, forsooth,
She seems to please the modern youth,
And I, though older, balder, fatter,
Still get a lame neck gazing at her.