Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

See the year, the meadow, smiling!
Let us then a smile display:

Rural sports, our pain beguiling,
Rural pastimes call away.

Now the swallow seeks her dwelling,
And no longer loves to roam;

The example thus impelling,

Let us seek our native home!

Let both men and steeds assemble,

Panting for the wide champaign;
Let the ground beneath us tremble,
While we scour along the plain.

Oh, what raptures! oh, what blisses!
When we gain the lovely gate!
Mothers' arms, and mothers' kisses,
There our blest arrival wait.

Greet our household gods with singing,
Lend, O Lucifer, thy ray;

Why should light, so slowly springing,

All our promised joys delay ?

Founded upon the celebrated song of the Winchester School boys' "Dulce Domum." It first appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for March, 1796, under the signature of J. R.

GLUGGITY GLUG.

From the "Myrtle and the Vine."

A JOLLY fat friar loved liquor good store,
And he had drunk stoutly at supper;
He mounted his horse, in the night at the door
And sat with his face to the crupper:

Some rogue, quoth the friar, quite dead to remorse,
Some thief, whom a halter will throttle,

Some scoundrel has cut off the head of my horse,
While I was engaged at the bottle,

Which went gluggity, gluggity-glug-glug-glug.

The tail of the steed pointed south on the dale,

'Twas the friar's road home, straight, and level; But, when spurr'd, a horse follows his nose, not his tail, So he scamper'd due north, like a devil:

This new mode of docking, the friar then said,
I perceive doesn't make a horse trot ill;
And 'tis cheap-for he never can eat off his head,
While I am engaged at the bottle,

Which goes gluggity, gluggity-glug-glug―glug.

[graphic]

The steed made a stop-in a pond he had got,
He was rather for drinking than grazing;

Quoth the friar, 'tis strange headless horses should trot,
But to drink with their tails is amazing!
Turning round to see whence this phenomenon rose,
In the pond fell this son of a pottle;

Quoth he, the head 's found, for I 'm under his nose-
I wish I were over a bottle,

Which goes gluggity, gluggity-glug-glug-glug.

[blocks in formation]

Ne'er have I a clouded face,
Swift I change from place to place,
Ever wand'ring, ever free,
And my name's Variety.

Like a bird that skims the air,
Here and there, and every where,
Sip my pleasures like a bee,
Nothing's like Variety.

Love's sweet passion warms my breast,
Roving love but breaks the rest,
One good heart's enough for me,
Tho' my name's Variety.

Crowded scenes and lovely grove,
All by turns I can approve;
Follow, follow, follow me,
Friend of life, Variety.

THE TURNING OF THE WHEEL.

From the "Convivial Songster."

THE wheel of life is turning quickly round,
And nothing in this world, of certainty is found,
The midwife wheels us in, and death wheels us out,
Good lack! good lack! how things are wheeled about!

Some few aloft on fortune's wheel do go,

And as they mount up high, the others tumble low,
For this we all agree that fate at first did will,
That this great wheel should never once stand still.

The courtier turns to gain his private end,

Till he's so giddy grown, he quite forgets his friend;
Prosperity oft times deceives the proud and vain,
And wheels so fast, it turns them out again.

Some turn to this, and that, and every way,

And cheat, and scrape, for what can't purchase one poor day; But this is far below the generous hearted man

Who lives, and makes the most of life he can.

And thus we're wheeled about in life's short farce,
Till we at last are wheel'd off, in a rumbling hearse;
The midwife wheels us in, and death wheels us out,
Good lack! good lack! how things are wheel'd about!

WIFE, CHILDREN, AND FRIENDS.

THE HON. R. W. SPENCER.

ONE day when to Jove the black list was presented,
The list of what Fate for each mortal intends,

At the long string of ills a kind Goddess relented,

And slipp'd in three blessings-Wife, Children, and Friends. In vain surly Pluto declar'd he was cheated,

And Justice divine could not compass its ends,

The scheme of man's penance he swore was defeated,

For Earth becomes Heaven, with-Wife, Children, and Friends.

The day-spring of youth still unclouded with sorrow,
Alone on itself for enjoyment depends;

But drear is the twilight of age, if it borrow

No warmth from the smiles of-Wife, Children, and Friends. Let the breath of renown ever freshen and nourish

The laurel, which o'er her dead favourite bends;

O'er me wave the willow, and long may it flourish,

Bedew'd with the tears of-Wife, Children, and Friends.

IN THE SEASON OF THE YEAR.

WHEN I was bound apprentice,

In famous Lincolnshire,

Full well I served my master,

For more than seven year;

Till I took up to poaching,

As you shall quickly hear.

Oh! it's my delight on a shiny night,
In the season of the year.

As me and my comàrade

Were setting of a snare,

'Twas then we spied the gamekeeper,
For him we did not care;

For we can wrestle and fight, my boys,
And jump o'er anywhere,―

For it's my delight on a shiny night,
In the season of the year.

As me and my comàrade,

Were setting four or five,
And taking of him up again,

We caught the hare alive;

We took the hare alive, my boys,

And thro' the woods did steer,-
Oh! it's my delight on a shiny night,
In the season of the year.

We threw him o'er our shoulders,
And then we trudged home,
We took him to a neighbour's house,
And sold him for a crown;
We sold him for a crown, my boys,
But I did not tell you where,-
Oh! it's my delight on a shiny night,
In the season of the year.

Success to every gentleman

That lives in Lincolnshire,

Success to every poacher,

That wants to sell a hare.

Bad luck to every gamekeeper

That will not sell his deer,

For it's my delight on a shiny night,

In the season of the year.

The date and origin of this song are unknown.

Though it has not the slightest pretensions to literary merit, its subject, and the melody have long made it popular among the English peasantry. "It has been sung," says Mr. Chappell, "by several hundred voices together, at the harvest homes of George the Fourth."

I AM A FRIAR OF ORDERS GREY.

J. O'KEEFFE. From the Opera of "Merry Sherwood."

I AM a Friar of orders grey,

And down in the valleys I take my way,
I pull not blackberry, haw, or hip,
Good store of venison fills my scrip;

« AnteriorContinuar »