Classic Poem

To Boucher's school I will not go
If Nelly's gate I must go past!
At school, I learn so very slow;
From Nelly I learn twice as fast.
Sweet Nelly Calvert, are you there?
Blue jacket, boy's hat, riding whip?
Mount Airy has not too much air
When swells my heart to Nelly's lip.

Turn from the road! the pines are green,
Our teacher shall be the wood dove;
Stepfather Washington is keen
And thinks that school-boys should not love.
What did he know of love, I ask,
When in my mother's gate he turned?
Love is the most delightful task
That two together ever learned.

Here is a hazel-berried sprig,
I'll set it in your fillie's fore.
Kiss me if I am not too big!
Reprove me not if I adore!
This budding spring is perfect bliss;
Who would not rather on thee look
Than dawdle at Annapolis,
Or at Mount Vernon hug a book?

At Nottingham my boat is moored
I sent it round Potomac way,
We'll puTour hunters both aboard
And canter on to Herring bay;
So far our guardians won't pursue
But let us have an all-day freak
And I will bathe you in the blue,
Sky-feathered wing of Chesapeake.

Or sail you down the golden roads
Patuxent's ships are lost within,
To dream more love than Ovid's odes
Sighed to your high mysterious kin;
Thy grandam surely was a queen,
I feel her sceptre in thy moods,
Thy government is as serene
As Pocahontas in her woods.

There flashed a fox! She's like a bow
And arrow on her courser's stride.
Sweet mistress — Yoricks! Tally ho!
The way to take you is to ride.
Like a hawk's shadow see her flow!
To horn and hounds her strain is bred.
She's galloped into Marlboro'
Nelly, we're found out: let us wed!