A Marriage Proposal

A.W. Bellaw, a 19th-century American poet and humorist, plays with irregular verbs in this light-hearted marriage proposal.


Conjugal Conjugations

by Americus Wellington Bellaw

Dear Maid, let me speak
What I never yet spoke:
You have made my heart squeak
As it never yet squoke
And for sight of you, both my eyes ache as they ne'er before oak.

With your voice my ears ring,
And a sweeter ne'er rung,
Like a bird's on the wing
When at morn it has wung.
And gladness to me it doth bring, such as never voice brung.

My feelings I'd write,
But they cannot be wrote,
And who can indite
What was never indote!
And my love I hasten to plight--the first that I plote.

Yes, you I would choose,
Whom I long ago chose,
And my fond spirit sues
As it never yet sose,
And ever on you do I muse, as never man mose.

The house where you bide
Is a blessed abode;
Sure my hopes I can hide,
For they will not be hode,
And no person living has sighed, as, darling, I've sode.

Your glances they shine
As no others have shone,
And all else I'd resign
That a man could resone,
And surely no other could pine as I lately have pone.

And don't you forget
You will ne'er be forgot,
You never should fret
As at times you have frot,
I would chase all the cares that beset, if they ever besot.

For you I would weave
Songs that never were wove,
And deeds I'd achieve
Which no man achove,
And for me you never should grieve, as for you I have grove.

I'm as worthy a catch
As ever was caught,
O, your answer I watch
As a man never waught,
And we'd make the most elegant match as ever was maught.

Let my longings not sink;
I would die if they sunk.
O, I ask you to think
As you never have thunk,
And our fortunes and lives let us link, as no lives could be lunk.