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SONG.

You ask me to sing-I'd be glad if I could
Sing like a thrush in the underwood,

Like a twinkling lark that sings up in the sky,
Or a swan that sings only when going to die.
Ere now I have sung, when my heart was young,
Like cock-crow loud and clearly,

But I cannot sing now, I protest, I vow,
Because I love you dearly.

Could I sing like a syren—but that would I not, Could I sing like a minstrel whose name is forgot, But whose strain is a treasure which all men may

borrow,

To harmonise joy and to sweeten their sorrow,

Oh, then I would sing to my dear, dear thing,

Like cock-crow loud and clearly,

But I cannot sing now, I protest, I vow,

Because I love you dearly.

Could I sing what I feel, and express by a note How justly esteeming, how fondly I dote,

Then would music no more be a nice thing of art,

But as in old time the true voice of the heart.

I could sing all day long-sing song after song,
Like an angel singing clearly,

But I cannot sing now, I protest, I vow,
Because I love you dearly.

VOL. II.

THE SOLACE OF SONG.

WHEN on my mother's arm I lay
A happy helpless thing,

Still was I glad by night and day
my mother sing,

To hear

Baby, baby, do not cry,

It was a lovely lullaby.

I was a boy, a wayward boy,
And yet I still would cling,
With something like a baby joy,

To any that could sing.

Sing up, sing high, a merry lay,
For 'tis a merry holiday.

I was a youth, a sighing youth,
A zephyr of the spring,

And then I thought that all was truth

That I was fond to sing.

Sweetly, sweetly let me die

In the soft breathing of a sigh.

But now, alas, I am a man,

And time has pruned my wing,
And I have but a little space
To flutter and to sing.

Singing to the autumn blast,

Be my sweetest song my last.

And should I live to be an old,
An old forgotten thing,
Yet never may my heart be cold

When holy maidens sing.

Holy, holy, may the Psalm

My very latest sense embalm!

A SONG WITHOUT A TUNE.

A SONG without a tune

I made in the month of June, Eighteen hundred and forty-eight; 'Tis right to be exact in date.

Sweet lassy, parted we have been
A full twelvemonth and more,
And many a change the world has seen,
And many a heart been sore.

Kings that were mighty monarchs then

Are not, or nothing are but men.

And many a maid that loved a man

Of wealth and high degree

Must try to love him, if she can,

In perilous poverty.

For in the wild creed of the time,

To have been rich is deem'd a crime.

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