Classic Poem

As along by the wood of rustling beech,
And whispering pine, without a breach,
I went, where the gravel roadways reach
For men on their way to roam, O,
On homeward, or out from home, O,

A squire that rode a mare milkwhite
Came on with a lady fair to sight,
All gleaming with gold, in blue bedight,
On a mettlesome bay to roam, O,
On homeward, or out from home, O.

For aught that I knew, the woody ground,
Whereon I beheld their horses bound,
Was all their own land to ramble round
A half of the day, and roam, O,
On homeward, or out from home, O.

But then, on a pony's tripping pace,
There came on a girl with sweetest face,
In brown, with a hood of grey, to trace
Her roadway so gay, and roam, O,
But where, aye Oh! where was her home, O?

Below at the mill, the brook's low shore?
Or else at the wheelwright's paint-streak'd door?
Or else at the dairy's well-clean'd floor,
To start in the day to roam, O,
And come before night back home, O?

I never would care for gold or land,
But only would ask her heart and hand,
And one little stable, where might stand
Her pony with hay, to roam, O,
With mine for her happy home, O.