ELEVEN long winters departed
Since you and he sailed o'er the main?
Dear, dear—I've been thrice broken-hearted,
And thrice—but, ah, let me refrain.—
...
THRICE 'Iö Pæan!' let me cry,
And bless the hour that I was born
And born thro' love in vain to sigh—
To cheer my longing heart a morn
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JUST let the Owl of Evil howl!
To mourners of each rank and station,
I cry, Come troll the Golden Bowl,
And quaff with me one deep potation!
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OH, what is Life? A magic night
In which we still to phantoms yield;
And what is Death, if not the light
By which the real truth's reveal'd?
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'NOT now shall I sing of my sports in Spring,
But the golden hours and gay,'
Sang the Breeze, 'when I, a wild lover, hie
With the Summer flowers to play.
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ALAS! the woe the high of heart,
Seem pre-ordained to undergo,
While proud ambition hides the smart,
And smiles delude the world below.
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AS I came down from Earsdon Town,
A-lilting of a lay,
Whom did I meet but she, the sweet,
The blue-eyed Lotty Hay.
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AT Backworth sung till echo rung,
A bard whose feelings were,
In what to young and old he sung
Of little Dolly Dare.
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IF Ellerton Willy be slighted by Lilly!
Yet others as bonny will hark to his lay;
Then why like a silly bit daffodowndilly,
Should I droop my head, droop, and cry, well-a-way?
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AWAY to the pic-nic at Ryton, away
Went off in the sunrise our younkers pell-mell—
And many were bonny and many were gay,
But sweetest of any was Barbara Bell.
...