From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, New York: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 202-203.
RAZORS
O where is now the good old blade
With which the old time shave was made,
The grasshook which with pain and trouble
Was wont to reap our grandsires’ stubble?
No nice hot water came from spigots
To soak the beards of those old bigots.
They had no modern lather dope,
But worked theirs up from yaller soap.
My grandsire’s beard was tough and strong;
He had a blade six inches long,
The meanest one you ever saw,
Which used to leave him red and raw.
He stropped the same with steady licks,
He sought to smooth its deadly nicks,
Yet slashed himself in many a spot
And said some things he’d ought to not.
His tough old hide he made long slits in
And said weird words like “ding” and “blitzen.”
I learned those oaths and used them both,
When whacking off my whiskery growth,
And thus became a wicked phraser
When I began to raise a razor.
But now no more a frenzied stropper,
[203]
My words are chaste and pure and proper.
My safety razor’s good, though cheap;
It cuts sometimes but can’t cut deep.
For even I, long unconvinced,
Though oft my jaw was slashed and minced,
Have laid my sickle on the shelf
Like many a gent who shaves himself.
But that old blade this bald bard scorns,
Not long the upper shelf adorns
Ere Hannah gets it for her corns.
The wiry edge that sawed my whiskers,
Now whittles down her aching diskers.
She wields the weapon well, I wist,
And is her own chiropodist.