Virtual Love Song
By Rob S. Rice

Oh!  come with me, my dove, be my Internet love
Let our flow control be RTS.
At eight bits, parity set already to "E"
We can interface with no distress.

Let us not prance like UNIX, our true love is NeXT,
And as intimates we'd not be sorry,
When you confess PROCOMM has left you perplexed
And I told you I use an Atari.

Ah, how happy we'll be, if you should "finger" me,
And my screen would soon inform me that
Even then, late at night, when the lag time is slight
Your DAEMON was primed for a chat.

We'd in bliss F-T-P, typing "l-s dash c"
As the files spilled over our screens.
You'd search through my folders so ecstatically
That we'd both know what "protocol" means.

We would overwhelm all the limits of ELM,
And we'd strain our account sizes' fetters
And I'd GOPHER your sig.files whatever their realm
So I'd know where to "BOUNCE" my love letters.

Let our love be eternal, PROCESSING--please wait!
And our link-up be noise-free meanwhile.
Let no bitter distress, such as from VMS,
Leave me lost in your dreaded "kill" file.

For your smile, I'd take risks--I'd not save files to disks!
And I'd yield, whenever the urge
To seek a connection, even _sans_ protection
And hazard the chance of a surge.

Your hours I'd bemuse with my blurbs on the "news"
And regardless if posting got choppy
I would always begin, with "rn" or NEWTIN
Being certain I'd zap you a copy.

I'd swear off my friends, smile when "SESSION ENDS,"
And VERONICA'd be just a dream
You would not find me starchy if you used your ARCHIE,
And my WAIS-line would make your eyes gleam.

I'd send GIF's by the score, JPGs, even more
And I'd soon have our IRC booked.
With the hope, that someday, when you're not far away
You'd not shriek when you'd seen how I looked.

And then we, when we'd wed, with our data line-fed
Would know what two lovers should do.
We'd set up our own node (God knows what we'd encode!)
In a Pentium chip built for two.