| Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922. | | | | Atalanta in Camden-town | | By Lewis Carroll |
| | | AY, ’t was here, on this spot, | |
| In that summer of yore, | |
| Atalanta did not | |
| Vote my presence a bore, | |
| Nor reply, to my tenderest talk, “She had heard all that nonsense before.” | 5 |
| |
| She’d the brooch I had bought | |
| And the necklace and sash on, | |
| And her heart, as I thought, | |
| Was alive to my passion; | |
| And she’d done up her hair in the style that the Empress had brought into fashion. | 10 |
| |
| I had been to the play | |
| With my pearl of a Peri— | |
| But, for all I could say, | |
| She declared she was weary, | |
| That “the place was so crowded and hot, and she could n’t abide that Dundreary.” | 15 |
| |
| Then I thought, “’T is for me | |
| That she whines and she whimpers!” | |
| And it soothed me to see | |
| Those sensational simpers, | |
| And I said, “This is scrumptious!”—a phrase I had learned from the Devonshire shrimpers. | 20 |
| |
| And I vowed, “’T will be said | |
| I’m a fortunate fellow | |
| When the breakfast is spread, | |
| When the topers are mellow, | |
| When the foam of the bride-cake is white, and the fierce orange blossoms are yellow!” | 25 |
| |
| Oh, that languishing yawn! | |
| Oh, those eloquent eyes! | |
| I was drunk with the dawn | |
| Of a splendid surmise— | |
| I was stung by a look, I was slain by a tear, by a tempest of sighs. | 30 |
| |
| And I whispered, “’T is time! | |
| Is not love at its deepest! | |
| Shall we squander life’s prime, | |
| While thou waitest and weepest? | |
| Let us settle it, license or banns?—though undoubtedly banns are the cheapest.” | 35 |
| |
| “Ah, my Hero,” said I, | |
| “Let me be thy Leander!” | |
| But I lost her reply— | |
| Something ending with “gander”— | |
| For the omnibus rattled so loud that no mortal could quite understand her. | 40 | | | |
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