Sweetest li'l feller, everybody knows;
Dunno what to call him, but he's mighty lak' a rose;
Lookin' at his mammy wid eyes so shiny blue
Mek' you think that Heav'n is comin' clost ter you.
A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again for goal,
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
A little soul.
But what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
Beat upon mine, little heart! beat, beat!
Beat upon mine! you are mine, my sweet!
All mine from your pretty blue eyes to your feet,
My sweet!
Baby smiled, mother wailed,
Earthward while the sweetling sailed;
Mother smiled, baby wailed,
When to earth came Viola.
A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure.
Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed!
Heavenly blessings without number
Gently falling on thy head.
BALLADS
I've now got the music book ready,
Do sit up and sing like a lady
A recitative from Tancredi,
And something about "Palpiti!"
Sing forte when first you begin it,
Piano the very next minute,
They'll cry "What expression there's in it!"
Don't sing English ballads to me!
The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And I met with a ballad, I can't say where,
That wholly consisted of lines like these.
Thespis, the first professor of our art,
At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.
I knew a very wise man that believed that * * * if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.
Some people resemble ballads which are only sung for a certain time.
I have a passion for ballads. * * * They are the gypsy children of song, born under green hedgerows in the leafy lanes and bypaths of literature,—in the genial Summertime.
For a ballad's a thing you expect to find lies in.
More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels.
I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.
I love a ballad but even too well; if it be
doleful matter, merrily set down, or a very
pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably.
A famous man is Robin Hood,
The English ballad-singer's joy.
BANISHMENT
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow
Through Eden took their solitary way.
Had we no other quarrel else to Rome, but that
Thou art thence banish'd, we would muster all
From twelve to seventy; and pouring war
Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
Like a bold flood o'erbear.
No, my good lord: banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins: but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company: banish plump Jack and banish all the world.
Have stooped my neck under your injuries
And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment.
Banished?
O friar, the damned use that word in hell ;
Howlings attend it: How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,
To mangle me with that word—banished?
