Classic Poem

Aye! light is my little lay. —
I sought but a while agone,
A place where I yet had never been,
By roads I had ne'er been on
Till then, on a sunny day in May.
Ask me not where.

As lanes cut athwart the lanes,
And some rangled round the sunny slopes,
And some o'er the streamy plains,
I took a wrong road, and went astray,
Ask me not where.

The road that I so mistook
Led up to an outstep house, well-sunn'd,
Insconced in a tree-back'd nook,
Where now I would give an hour to stay;
Ask me not where.

And there, on a sunny lawn,
O'erlooking, beside a cypress tree,
Some children as fresh as dawn,
A maiden was shown as fair's a fay,
Ask me not where.

I asked her about my road,
And whether I there had far miscome,
Miscome unto that abode;
And kindly she set me in my way,
Ask me not where.

The road that I then mistook
Is one that I fain shall go again,
To hear at that outstep nook
What further that tongue may have to say.
Ask me not where.

Lest now, if my prize be shown,
Another may go and win it thence,
Before it becomes my own.
What! " Spell out the spot," say you? O nay,
Ask me not where.