No More Learning

Sweet month of May,
We must away;
Far, far away!
To-day! to-day! "

1815.




HUNTING SONG

[_ZAPOLYA_, ACT IV. SCENE 2]


Up, up! ye dames, and lasses gay!
To the meadows trip away.
'Tis you must tend the flocks this morn,
And scare the small birds from the corn.
Not a soul at home may stay:
For the shepherds must go
With lance and bow
To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.

Leave the hearth and leave the house
To the cricket and the mouse:
Find grannam out a sunny seat,
With babe and lambkin at her feet.
Not a soul at home may stay:
For the shepherds must go
With lance and bow
To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.

1815.




WESTPHALIAN SONG

[The following is an almost literal translation of a very old and very
favourite song among the Westphalian Boors. The turn at the end is the same
with one of Mr.
Dibdin's excellent songs, and the air to which it is sung
by the Boors is remarkably sweet and lively. ]


When thou to my true-love com'st
Greet her from me kindly;
When she asks thee how I fare?
Say, folks in Heaven fare finely.

When she asks, "What! Is he sick? "
Say, dead! --and when for sorrow
She begins to sob and cry,
Say, I come to-morrow.

? 1799.




YOUTH AND AGE


Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee--
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!

_When_ I was young? --Ah, woeful When!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly _then_ it flashed along:--
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!