I Prithee send me back my heart,
Since I cannot have thine;
For if from yours you will not part,
Why then shouldst thou have mine?
Yet, now I think on ’t, let it lie;
To find it were in vain;
For thou ’st a thief in either eye
Would steal it back again.
Why should two hearts in one breast lie,
And yet not...
Originally Printed in 1569
LOVE me little, love me long!
Is the burden of my song:
Love that is too hot and strong
Burneth soon to waste.
Still I would not have thee cold,—
Not too backward, nor too bold;
Love that lasteth till ’t is old
Fadeth not in haste.
Love me little, love me long!
Is the...
God makes sech nights, all white an’ still
Fur ’z you can look or listen;
Moonshine an’ snow on field an’ hill,
All silence an’ all glisten.
Zekle crep’ up quite unbeknown
An’ peeked in thru’ the winder,
An’ there sot Huldy all alone,
’Ith no one nigh to hender.
A fireplace filled the room’s one side,
With...
AND 1 there they sat, a-popping corn,
John Styles and Susan Cutter—
John Styles as fat as any ox,
And Susan fat as butter.
And there they sat and shelled the corn,
And raked and stirred the fire,
And talked of different kinds of corn,
And hitched their chairs up nigher.
Then Susan she the popper shook,
Then...
Adapted from old ballads
IT was a friar of orders gray
Walked forth to tell his beads;
And he met with a lady fair
Clad in a pilgrim’s weeds.
“Now Christ thee save, thou reverend friar;
I pray thee tell to me,
If ever at yon holy shrine
My true-love thou didst see.”
“And how should I know your true-love...
From “The Vicar of Wakefield”
“TURN, gentle Hermit of the dale,
And guide my lonely way
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.
“For here forlorn and lost I tread,
With fainting steps and slow;
Where wilds, immeasurably spread,
Seem lengthening as I go.”
“Forbear, my son,” the Hermit cries,...
The Laird o’ Cockpen he ’s proud and he ’s great,
His mind is ta’en up with the things o’ the state;
He wanted a wife his braw house to keep,
But favor wi’ wooin’ was fashious to seek.
Doun by the dyke-side a lady did dwell,
At his table-head he thought she ’d look well;
M’Clish’s ae daughter o’ Claverse-ha’ Lee,
A penniless lass wi’ a...
From “Othello,” Act I. Sc. 3.
OTHELLO.—Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,—
That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her:
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
And little blessed with the soft...
A New Old Ballad
THE WIND it blew, and the ship it flew;
And it was “Hey for hame!
And ho for hame!” But the skipper cried,
“Haud her oot o’er the saut sea faem.”
Then up and spoke the King himsel’:
“Haud on for Dumferline!”
Quo the skipper, “Ye ’re king upo’ the land—
I’m king upo’ the brine.”
And he took the...
At Paris it was, at the opera there;
And she looked like a queen in a book that night,
With the wreath of pearl in her raven hair,
And the brooch on her breast so bright.
Of all the operas that Verdi wrote,
The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore;
And Mario can soothe, with a tenor note,
The souls in purgatory.
The...
