Arthur Guiterman (1871-1943)
The Passionate Suburbanite To His Love
1Commute with me, my Love, and be merry;
2 How vain in the City to dwell
3When apple-trees blow in Dobbs' Ferry
4 And lilacs adorn New Rochelle!
5White Plains is the Garden of Allah
6 And Pelham's the Pearl of the Sea;
7There's bliss in the name of Valhalla --
8 Oh, fly to the Suburbs with me!
9Then won't you commute on my family ticket?
10To Westchester County we'll flee.
11 Delightful Westchester,
12 What place is sequester!
13Oh, won't you commute, Love, with me?
14I'll pluck you the earliest crocus
15 In Orange or Englewood fair;
16We'll sport on the meads of Hohokus,
17 We'll ramble through Cultured Montclair;
18We'll rest in Exclusive Tuxedo,
19 Or Nutley, for artists renowned,
20And still shall I carol my credo,
21 "The Suburbs are Paradise Found."
22Then won't you commute on my family ticket?
23Perhaps you prefer New Jersee;
24 For who could grow weary
25 Of life on the Erie!
26Then won't you commute, Love, with me?
27The Isle 'twixt the Sound and the Ocean --
28 Ah, has it no Message for you?
29I cannot but think with emotion
30 Of Flushing, Jamaica, and Kew,
31Of Bayshore of youthful vacations,
32 Of Little Neck, Great Neck, and Quogue
33And all of the other Clam Stations
34 Including Speonk and Patchogue.
35Then come take a trip on my family ticket
36Where Long Island breezes blow free.
37 To live on the Subway
38 Is surely a dub way,--
39Then fly to the Suburbs with me!
Notes
1] Commute with me, my Love, and be merry: a parody of Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"
3] Dobbs' Ferry: all these places are in Westchester County, north of New York City.
15] Orange: places in New Jersey.
19] Nutley: places in New Jersey.
30] Flushing: communities in the vicinity of Queen's, New York.
31] Bayshore: towns in Long Island, east of New York.
38] dub: silly, commonplace.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text:
Publication date note: Guiterman, Arthur, The Laughing Muse (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1915): 131-132.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition:
Recent editing: 1:2004/6/21
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