Classic Poem

You're the cook's understudy,
A gentle idiot body.
You are slender like a broom,
Weaving up and down the room
With your dirt hair in a twist
And your left eye in a mist.
Never thinkin', never hopin',
With your wet mouth open.
So bewildered and so busy
As you scrape the dirty kettles,
O Slip-shoe Lizzie,
As you rattle with the pans.
There's a clatter of old metals,
O Slip-shoe Lovey,
As you clean the milk cans.
You're a greasy little dovey,
A laughing scullery daughter,
As you slop the dish water —
So abstracted and so dizzy,
O Slip-shoe Lizzie!

So mussy, little hussie,
With the china that you break.
And the kitchen in a smear
When the bread is yet to bake,
And the market things are here —
O Slip-shoe Lovey!

You are hurrying and scurrying
From the sink to the oven,
So forgetful and so sloven.
You are bustling and hustling
From the pantry to the door,
With your shoe-strings on the floor,
And your apron-strings a-draggin',
And your spattered skirt a-saggin.'

You're an angel idiot lovey —
One forgives you all this clatter
Washing dishes, beating batter.
But there is another matter
As you dream above the sink:
You're in love pitter-patter,
With the butcher-boy, I think.
And he'll get you, he has got you!
If he hasn't got you yet.

For he means to make you his,
O Slip-shoe Liz;
And your open mouth is wet
To a little boyish chatter.
You're an easy thing to flatter,
With your hank of hair a-twist,
And your left eye in a mist,
O Slip-shoe Lovey!

So hurried and so flurried,
And just a little worried,
You lean about the room
Like a mop, like a broom.
O Slip-shoe Lovey!
O Slip-shoe Lovey!