Now that our mirth is o'er, now that our Dream is done,
Now that a Hand creeps out across the heavenly blue
Putting the lights of Heaven out sadly one by one,
What dream beneath the moon, what hope beneath the sun
Shall our poor souls pursue?

Startled amid the feast we look around and lo!
The Word of Doom that flames along Life's palace walls—
The music dies away—the last musicians go—
(Bards with their golden harps, gods in their robes of snow)
And the dread Silence falls!

What is the word we read in wonder and despair?

We then let go the sunny day
As one from many thousands more,
And let the evening glide away
As one from thousands yet in store;
As waterpools that little shrink
From one sip taken at the brink.

We took each holiday we spent
As heading more of sweeter rest,
And ev'ry joy as only meant
To be a smaller ere the best;
As if, since boyhood's leaps are high,
The boy might hope, as man, to fly.

And now that many years we thought
Were yet to come have glided by,
The day, which then would seem as nought

Oh! can or can I not live on,
Forgetting thee, my love forgone?
'Tis true, where joyful faces crowd
And merry tongues are ringing loud,
Or where some needful work unwrought
May call for all my care and thought,
Or where some landscape, bath'd in light,
May spread to fascinate my sight,
Thy form may melt awhile, as fade
Our shades within some welkin shade,
And I awhile may then live on,
Forgetting thee, my love forgone.

But then the thrilling thought comes on,
Of all thy love that's now forgone;

Had Mona been, as many are,
Among the stars a shining star,
Another with her beaming face
Might shine upon me in her place.
But no. She shone before my sight
The moon of all my earthly light,
And none like her can ever rise
To lighten my benighted eyes.

The winds o'er bowing saplings fly,
The clouds swim on below the sky,
The water winds with ceaseless speed
By woody knowle and grassy mead;
Yet could I ride the water's face,
Or keep the wind's unslackened pace,
Nor stream below nor wind above
Could ever waft me to my love.

O when, in happy dreams of silent night,
My soul roams back to some sweet youthful scene,
Annihilating all the years between
My present sorrow and my past delight,
How lovely then appear before my sight
In youthful mirth, and with their youthful mien,
My early friends, no longer to be seen
When dream-dispelling morning brings its light.

Come shades of evening, brood around my bed,
Allaying all the sorrows of the day,
And wakening remembrance of the past;

That I may bask again in summers fled,

Good people give attention to a story you shall hear:
Between the king and my lord Delamere,
A quarrel arose in the Parliament House,
Concerning the taxes to be put in force.
With my fal de ral de ra.

I wonder, I wonder that James, our good king,
So many hard taxes upon the poor should bring;
So many hard taxes, as I have heard them say
Makes many a good farmer to break and run away.

Such a rout has been in the parliament, as I hear,
Betwixt a Dutch lord and my lord Delamere.
He said to the king, as he sat on the throne,

Where the zun did glow warm vrom his height,
On the vo'k, at their work, in white sleeves;
An' the goold-banded bee wer in flight,
Wi' the birds that did flit by the leaves;
There my two little childern did run,
An' did rile, an' did roll, in their fun:
An' did clips, in their hands,
Stick or stwone vor their plaÿ:
In their hands, that had little a-grown;
Vor their plaÿ, wi' a stick or a stwone.

As the zun down his high zummer bow
To the west o' the orcha'd did vall,
He did leäve the brown bee-hives, in row,

‘My father was the Duke of York,
My mother a lady free,
Mysell a dainty damsell,
Queen Mary sent for me.

‘Yestreen I washd Queen Mary's feet,
Kam'd down her yellow hair,
And lay a' night in the young man's bed,
And I 'll rue t for evermair.

‘The queen's kale was aye sae het,
Her spice was aye sae fell,
Till they gart me gang to the young man's bed,
And I 'd a' the wyte mysell.

‘I was not in the queen's service
A twelvemonth but barely ane,
Ere I grew as big wi bairn
As ae woman could gang.

O Home of my heart! while I trod thy loved soil,
How sweet were my pleasures, how light was my toil;
The woods of Arcadia, the waves of the Rhine,
Could never charm me like those Meadows of thine.

I rove on the hills unto which I am bound,
And I look on the fields, and the valleys around;
And I look where the sun at his setting will shine,
And sigh, for there lie those sweet Meadows of thine;

With thee the few years of my life would I spend,
And yield thee my dust when it come to an end;
But alas! I must live, and my corpse must recline,

Go Lovely Youth, some happier fair Address,
If she has merit you must meet Success,
On such a form none ever Coldly Gazed,
She must be Stupid or she must be pleased.
Lost to delight thus far Even I am Moved,
I see one Object worthy to be Loved,
No Longer left at Liberty to Chuse
Wish when I gaze and sigh when I refuse,
Yet Arm'd with reason firmly I withstand
Your pleading Eyes, your softly pressing hand.
But Let not this Confession of my Mind
Sooth a Vain hope I shall be one day kind,
Not like the Gay Coquet who seems to fly,