Fill the merry bowls my boys,
Join in Bacchanalian roar.
O'er the merry midnight bowl,
O how happy we shall be ;
Day was made for vulgar souls,
Night, my boys, for you and me.
Seize the villain, plunge him in ;
See the hated miscreant dies
Mirth, with all thy train, come in,
Banish sorrows, tears, and sighs.
O'er the merry, &.
SWEET IS LIFE.
SWEET is life, when love directs us
To a kind and virtuous fair;
But when doubting fears perplex us,
Then 'tis anguish, grief, and care.
Fate the cup of life, will mingle
With it sweets and bitters too;
They who taste the honey single,
Must partake their share of rue.
Sweet, O sweet, is that sensation
When two hearts in union meet,
But the pain of separation
Mingles bitters with the sweets.
THE glasses sparkle on the board,
The wine is ruby bright,
The reign of pleasure is restored,
Of ease and fond delight.
The day is gone, the night's our own,
Then let us feast the soul;
If any care or pain remain,
Why, drown it in the bowl,
This world, they say, 's a world of woe,
But that I do deny ;
Can sorrow from the goblet flow?—
Or pain from beauty's eye!
The wise are fools, with all their rules,
When they would joys controul:
If life's a pain, I say again,
Let's drown it in the bowl.
That time flies fast, the poet sings;
Then surely it is wise
In rosy wine to dip his wings,
And seize him as he flies.
This night is ours; then strew with flowers
The moments as they roll:
If any care or pain remain,
Why drown it in the bowl.
RISE, GENTLE MOON.
DAY has gone down on the Baltic's broad billow,
Ev'ning has sigh'd her last to the lone willow,
Night hurries on, earth and ocean to cover:
Rise, gentle moon, and light me to my lover.
'Twas by thy light he first stole forth to view me,—
Brighter since then hast thou ever seem'd to me ;
Let the wild waves still the red sun roll over,
Thine is the light of all lights to a lover.
TIME IS ON THE WING.
STREW, strew with roses
Life's rough path, and let's be gay;
Thoughtless youth proposes,
And trifles time away;
But youth's a fleeting April morn,
This lesson seems to bring,-
Every rose will bear a thorn,
And time is on the wing.
Trip, trip to measure,
Dulcet as the voice of love;
Warble, sons of pleasure,
Down the flowery grove;
But Love's sweet voice will oft betray,
And pleasure cloy'd will find
Every flower will fade away,
When time is on the wing.
TELL HER, I'LL LOVE HER.
TELL her, I'll love her while the clouds drop rain
Or while there's water in the pathless main ;
Tell her, I'll love her till this life is o'er,
And then my ghost shall visit this sweet shore ;
Tell her, I only ask she'll think of me-
I'll love her while there's salt within the sea.
Tell her all this, tell it o'er and o'er again,
I'll love her while there's salt within the main.
Tell her all this, tell it o'er and o'er-
The anchor's weigh'd, or I would tell her more!
WITH a helment on his brow,
And his sabre by his side,
The soldier mounts his gallant steed,
To conquer or to die.
His plume, like the pendant stream,
In the wanton winter's wind,
In the path of glory still
A bright plume shall he find.
Then let the trumpet sound,
To the brazen'd drum reply,-
A soldier must with honour live,
Or once with honour die.
Bright as his own good sword,
A soldier's fame must be,
As pure as the plume that sits above,
And his helmet white and free.
No fear in his breast must dwell,
Nor dread that shame may throw
A spot on his blade so bright,
And his helmet white as snow, &c.
THE sea, the sea, the open sea,
The blue, the fresh, the ever free:
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide region round:
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies,
Or like a cradled creature lies.
I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea,
I am where I would ever be,
With the blue above and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go.
If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
I love, O how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
Where every mad wave drowns the moon,
And whistles aloft its tempest tune:
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west wind doth blow.
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh her mother's nest-
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea.
The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
The whale it whistled, the porpoise roll'd,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outery wild,
As welcom'd to life the ocean child.
I have lived since then in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a rover's life,
With wealth to spend, and a power to range,
But never have sought or sighed for change;
And death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wide unbounded sea!
1 HAVE PLUCK'D THE FAIREST FLOWER. I HAVE pluck'd the fairest flower, I have dream'd in fancy's bower,
I have bask'd in Beauty's eyes, I have mingled melt
If all those sweets to hive, I'm the guiltiest man aliveBut gentle maids believe I never can deceive,
Nor cause your breast to heave with a sad heigh ho, With a sad heigh ho, with a sad heigh ho.
But to raise in beauty's frame the burning blush of
Nor bid the tear to start, far be it from my heart. Such base attempts I scorn, to honour I was born, Then gentle maidens spare the heart you thus ensnare, Or the willow I must wear with a sad heigh ho, With a sad heigh ho, with a sad heigh ho, &c.
|