Classic Poem

I

What's my sweetheart? — A laundress is she.
Where does she live? — Down by the river.
Where the Isar roars, and the bridge stands high,
And the fluttering shirts hang out to dry:
There lives my pleasure-giver.

In the little cot with the garden plot,
And the shutters green a-showing,
There at the ironing-board she stands,
With the smoothing-iron in her clever hands:
And how her cheeks are glowing!

There she stands in a lily-white blouse
Figured with many a blossom;
Nor corset fastens the soft wavy billows
That bob underneath it, the easiest of pillows,
The swelling rounds of her bosom.

II

A bed, a cupboard, a table, a bench,
And in the midst a strapping wench,
My dolly, my jolly Jeannette.
Her eyes are brown, and so is her hair,
With its curls here, there, and everywhere,
And of cherry-ripe lips she's a swelling pair,
Jeannette! Jeannette!

There's ivy growing right up to the eaves,
And love at the lattice peeps through the leaves,
My dolly, my jolly Jeannette.
Bang goes the door, on my neck she springs,
We are alone, and the old wind sings
The song of a couple of happy things.
Jeannette! Jeannette!