A Song: “Willy” and Anne.
“Will you write to me, love, when away,—
When poor ‘Willy’’s gone over the lake![80]—
If you will, I will promise to pay
Thee for all the sweet labour you take?”
“Yes!”—she said, with a faint yet sweet voice—
“But be sure you fail not, in your turn,
To write back to the maid of your choice,—
If ’tis me then she’ll long your return.”
Singing on—said he “Oh! I’ll not fail,
If the heavens are kind to the ship,—
Safely wafting her on with the gale,—
And we reach the French port of Dieppe.”
“Ah then!—when you are there,” said sweet Anne,
“Will you send by the first coming post?”—
(With the same, a small pearl over-ran)—
And she sigh’d—“else I’ll think you are lost!”
Singing on—said he, “Can you forget
Our last ramble beneath the bright moon,
When your ‘Willy,’ and you, loving sat
On the gate-stile, and watch’d it go down?”
“Never! never!” she said, “for e’en now
Thy dear arms I feel round me entwin’d,
With thy lips on my unveilèd brow,
Whilst the zephyrs were wafting behind.”
[80] Signifying the sea.
