Things I Didn’t Know

[Jerusha Abbott]
Dear Daddy
Did you ever hear of Michelangelo?
He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the Middle Ages
The whole class laughed because I thought he was an archangel
Doesn't he sound like one?

Even more embarrassing
Somebody mentioned Florence Nightingale
And I asked if she was a freshman
That joke has gone all over college

You wouldn't believe, Daddy
What an abyss of ignorance my mind is
The things that most girls with a properly assorted family and friends and a library know by absorption
I've never even heard of

I didn't know that Henry VIII was married more than once
Or Shelley was a poet
I didn't know Alexander the Great had conquered most of Greece
Or people came from monkeys
I didn't know that the Garden of Eden was all just a beautiful myth...

I never read Great Expectations
Summer On The Lake
Euripides' Electra
I never met The Two Noble Kinsmen
Or ever came across The Merry Wives Of Windsor
I always feel like I'm Alice in Wonderland
Stranded in Vanity Fair...

Once upon a time
O Captain! My Captain!
I'm so many years behind
I'm still so many years behind

[Jervis Pendleton]
I didn't know that she'd be so clever!
I never dreamed of such imagination
I never read thoughts so expressive!
I really must reread
The Count of Monte Cristo

What am I thinking? I'm missing appointments
To read what she studied in French
I'm baffled and perplexed
O Captain! My Captain!
I really must get back to work
I wonder what she'll write me next...

[Jerusha Abbott]
I never heard of Meg, Jo, Beth or Amy
I'd never been to Dover Beach
Or heard the phrase
A man's reach should exceed his grasp

I feel like The Idiot
Or the Toilers Of The Sea
O Captain! My Captain!
All the world is verse to me
A lady with a lamp I see...

Now, Daddy, I must sleep
But I will think of you
For, Daddy, I know there is so much catching up to do