Listen to what happened there,
When a child with golden hair,
Slipped away from his mamma-a-a.
The fair child was running after a dragon-fly, and “the maiden with golden wings” enticed him into the cold water. That would teach him not to steal away from the maternal arms! As for “Venice,” I remember likewise the first lines, with all their doggerel:
If God should favor-ize
My noble enterprise,
I’ll hie me to Ven-ize
And spend my days in joy.
Whether from the magic of the name of an unknown city, or the melancholy air of the ritornello, I could in those days imagine no more enchanting journey than to go to that Venice whose gondolas I had been shown in a stereoscope. In later years, dreading disappointment, I hesitated long before carrying out the plan born of that far-away music—the music that we still hear within ourselves long after childhood’s days are past. Can it be that this is one of the surest guardians of the home?—that a simple lullaby, sung to quiet us, is the first spark to kindle our imaginations? And when, long after, I at last saw the city of flowing streets and rosy palaces, I entered it with respect, recalling to mind that my visit represented a “noble enterprise”; as if all its wondrous charm had been enfolded in Aunt Deen’s cradle-song.
I imagine that some of her innumerable songs were of her own invention. Or at least, having forgotten their precise words, I suppose that she recomposed them after her own fashion. There was especially a certain “Father Gregory,” half recited, half sung, which is hardly likely to be found in any collection. A charming old lady to whom I repeated it one day assured me that Father Gregory was known also in Berry, in the neighbourhood of Châtre, under the name of Father Christopher. The song, a sort of rhythmical prose, was declaimed in a singsong, suddenly bursting into a tune in the final syllables. A whole little comedy of vanity is summed up in a few phrases. You may judge for yourself from the version of it that I tell from memory.