Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/208

 ! Now, as this is a true ditty,
 * I do not assert—this, you know, is between us—

That she’s in a state of absolute nudity,
 * Like Powers’ Greek Slave, or the Medici Venus;

But I do mean to say, I have heard her declare,
 * When, at the same moment, she had on a dress
 * Which cost five hundred dollars, and not a cent less
 * And jewelry worth ten times more, I should guess,

That she had not a thing in the wide world to wear!

I should mention just here, that out of Miss Flora’s Two hundred and fifty or sixty adorers, I had just been selected as he who should throw all The rest in the shade, by the gracious bestowal On myself, after twenty or thirty rejections, Of those fossil remains which she called her “affections,” And that rather decayed, but well-known work of art, Which Miss Flora persisted in styling “her heart.”