The song itself is an indulgent delight, Dylan constructing myriad reasons why he’s ‘gonna have to put you down for a while’. And though the vocal may have been reined in to reflect the contracting range of recent years, it fully manages to sound as worldly wise as the words of wisdom that cavort off the page and onto tape. Using one of his favourite rhyming-schemes – that internal rhyme in line three – to maximum effect, he almost comes up with more quotable lines in a five-minute song than he managed on the whole of “Love and Theft”.
–> Heylin, Clinton. Still on the Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan Vol. 2 1974-2008 (pp. 496-498).

Well I wandered alone
Through a desert of stone
And I dreamt of my future wife
My sword’s in my hand

Every day we meet
On any old street
And you’re in your girlish prime
The short and the tall
Are coming to the ball

Here come the nurse
With money in her purse
Here come the ladies and men
You push it all in
And you’ve no chance to win
You play ’em on down to the end
I’m laying in the sand
Getting a sunshine tan

I count the years
And I shed no tears
I’m blinded to what might have been
Nature’s voice
Makes my heart rejoice

All the merry little elves
Can go hang themselves
My faith is as cold as can be
I’m stacked high to the roof
And I’m not without proof