O Alice, bonny, sweet, and fair,
With roses on her cheeks!
The little birds come drinking there,
The throstle almost speaks.
He dips his wings and wimples makes
Upon the fountain clear,
Then vanishes among the brakes
For ever singing near;
While Alice, listening, stands to hear,
And dips her pitcher without ear.
O Alice, bonny Alice, fair,
Thy pleasant face I love;
Thy red-rose cheek, thy dark brown hair,
Thy soft eyes, like a dove.
I see thee by the fountain stand,
With the sweet smiling face;
There's not a maid in all the land
With such bewitching grace
As Alice, who is drawing near,
To dip the pitcher without ear.
THE MAIDEN I LOVE
How sweet are Spring wild flowers! They grow past the counting.
How sweet are the wood-paths that thread through the grove!
But sweeter than all the wild flowers of the mountain
Is the beauty that walks here—the maiden I love.
Her black hair in tangles
The rose briar mangles;
Her lips and soft cheeks,
Where love ever speaks:
O there's nothing so sweet as the maiden I love.
It was down in the wild flowers, among brakes and brambles,
I met the sweet maiden so dear to my eye,
In one of my Sunday morn midsummer rambles,
Among the sweet wild blossoms blooming close by.
Her hair it was coal black,
Hung loose down her back;
In her hand she held posies
Of blooming primroses,
The maiden who passed on the morning of love.
Coal black was her silk hair that shaded white shoulders;
Ruby red were her ripe lips, her cheeks of soft hue;
Her sweet smiles, enchanting the eyes of beholders,
Thrilled my heart as she rambled the wild blossoms through.
Like the pearl, her bright eye;
In trembling delight I
Kissed her cheek, like a rose
In its gentlest repose.
O there's nothing so sweet as the maiden I love!
TO JENNY LIND
I cannot touch the harp again,
And sing another idle lay,
To cool a maddening, burning brain,
And drive the midnight fiend away.
Music, own sister to the soul.
Bids roses bloom on cheeks all pale;
And sweet her joys and sorrows roll
When sings the Swedish Nightingale.
* * * * *
I cannot touch the harp again;
No chords will vibrate on the string;
Like broken flowers upon the plain,
My heart e'en withers while I sing.
Aeolian harps have witching tones,
On morning or the evening gale;
No melody their music owns
As sings the Swedish nightingale.