Classic Poem

I WANT to go to Boston!
There's something in the air —
The breath of spring; some restless germ unnamed; it's everywhere —
That somehow makes my spirit loathe all tasks and discipline,
And seasonably stirs it up to bolt the rut it's in.

Oh, clang of gongs on cable cars! Oh, rattling trains o'erhead!
Oh, hustle of this driving town! Oh, life too briskly sped!
'Twixt you and me 'twere sweet to put a temporary gap,
And go and sit awhile in Boston's calm, commodious lap.

'Tis true, it's not the town it was some twenty years ago,
For even Boston can't neglect its Yankee right to grow;
But still, one finds a peerless club just where one found it then,
And gazing out on Beacon Hill those same good Boston men.

I want to play with them awhile, and hear their Boston prate,
And note their spreading dearth of hair and irksome gains in weight;
And, just as an experiment, there might perhaps be tried
One Boston cocktail's work in an abstemious inside.

I want to drive on Brookline roads, past homes where lives are spent
In fiscal ease, and sport, and intellectual content;
And see the Dedham polo sharps their livers' weal promote,
And hear on India wharf the lay that greets the Portland boat.

Oh, Boston, sweet are your delights, and though they may seem vain
To minds austere, my spirit craves the taste of them again.
Oh, heavenly town when one is tired! this good one may discern
In you that Heaven has not, since one may taste you, and return.