Cupid's Darts, Which Are A Growing Menace To The Public

Do not worry if I scurry from the grill room in a hurry,         Dropping hastily my curry and retiring into balk;     Do not let it cause you wonder if, by some mischance or blunder,         We encounter on the Underground and I get out and walk.     If I double as a cub'll when you meet him in the stubble,         Do not think I am in trouble or attempt to make a fuss;     Do not judge me melancholy or attribute it to folly         If I leave the Metropolitan and travel 'n a bus.     Do not quiet your anxiety by giving me a diet,         Or by base resort to vi et armis fold me to your arms,     And let no suspicious tremor violate your wonted phlegm or         Any fear that Harold's memory is faithless to your charms.     For my passion as I dash on in that disconcerting fashion         Is as ardently irrational as when we forged the link     When you gave your little hand away to me, my own Amanda         As we sat 'n the veranda till the stars began to wink.     And I am in such a famine when your beauty I examine         That it lures me as the jam invites a hungry little brat;     But I fancy that, at any rate, I'd rather waste a penny         Then be spitted by the many pins that bristle from your hat.                                         Unknown.