O lend to me, sweet nightingale,
Your music by the fountain,
And lend to me your cadences,
O river of the mountain!
That I may sing my gay brunette,
A diamond spark in coral set,
Gem for a prince’s coronet—
The daughter of Mendoza.
How brilliant is the morning star,
The evening star how tender,—
The light...
From “The Miller’s Daughter”
IT is the miller’s daughter,
And she is grown so dear, so dear,
That I would be the jewel
That trembles at her ear:
For, hid in ringlets day and night,
I ’d touch her neck so warm and white.
And I would be the girdle
About her dainty, dainty waist,
And her heart would beat against me...
There was a youthe, and a well-beloved youthe,
And he was a squire’s son;
He loved the bayliffes daughter deare,
That lived in Islington.
Yet she was coye, and would not believe
That he did love her soe,
Noe nor at any time would she
Any countenance to him showe.
But when his friendes did understand
His fond...
From the German by John Sullivan Dwight
THREE students were travelling over the Rhine;
They stopped when they came to the landlady’s sign;
“Good landlady, have you good beer and wine?
And where is that dear little daughter of thine?”
“My beer and wine are fresh and clear;
My daughter she lies on the cold death-bier!”
And when to the...
From “The Fire-Worshippers”
FAREWELL,—farewell to thee, Araby’s daughter!
(Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea;)
No pearl ever lay under Oman’s green water
More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee.
O, fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing,
How light was thy heart till love’s witchery came,
Like the wind of the...
A Chieftain, to the Highlands bound,
Cries, “Boatman, do not tarry!
And I ’ll give thee a silver pound,
To row us o’er the ferry.”
“Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle,
This dark and stormy water?”
“O, I ’m the chief of Ulva’s isle,
And this Lord Ullin’s daughter.
“And fast before her father’s men
Three days...
A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.
My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept...
The parasol is the umbrella's daughter,
And associates with a fan
While her father abuts the tempest
And abridges the rain.
The former assists a siren
In her serene display;
But her father is borne and honored,
And borrowed to this day.
DEAL gently, thou whose hand hath won
The young bird from its nest away,
Where, careless,'neath a vernal sun,
She gayly carolled day by day;
The haunt is lone, the heart must grieve,
From where her timid wing doth soar
They pensive lisp at hush of eve,
Yet hear her...
