Classic Poem

When the gas-lamps are lighted, when twilight grows grey,
And our road is as bare as the lonely sea-shore,
I slip like a felon who's off with his prey
From the sheltering shade of our little back door.
There's a rattle of steel on the scullery floor,
Then a rustle of petticoats sweeps by my side:
In the dead of the dark we set out to explore,
For my Lady Godiva is learning to ride.

She chooses the darkness: she shrinks from the day:
She is shy of the milkman she dare not ignore;
She declares Mrs. Bangs, who lives over the way,
Will watch from her window from mid-day till four.
So every night, when I'm weary and sore,
She leans on my shoulder with womanly pride,
And I trot by the wheel of the wife I adore;
For my Lady Godiva is learning to ride.
She is pedaling hard; let him hold her who may:
She plunges about in great circles galore;
From the left to the right her magnificent sway
Cuts sixes and sevens and threes by the score
Then — crash! It's the railing that yesterday tore
The sleeve of my coat with a slithering slide:
She has struck it again as she struck it before! —
O, my Lady Godiva is learning to ride!

O still moonlit lovers, light-laughing and gay,
(We have missed you, thank Heaven! — an inch and no more!)
Has she whispered a " Yes " ? Has she faltered a " Nay " ?
With a dozen soft accents from Venus's store, —
Come, follow our progress; regard, and deplore,
For to this you must come with the turn of the tide;
And the true test of love is as stern as of yore,
When your Lady Godiva is learning to ride!

Queen of Love! Queen of Troth! from afar I implore!
At your palace the faithful were never denied.
Shall I rank as a King for the hardships I bore
When my Lady Godiva was learning to ride?