Sweet is the sound of lute and voice
When borne across the water.
Then two other sweets I could not quite catch, and the last lines sung with fervor:
But sweeter still is the charming voice
Of Professor Sanborn's daughter.
Two more stanzas and each with the refrain:
The prettiest girl on Hanover Plain is
Professor Sanborn's daughter.
Then the last verse:
Hot is the sun whose golden rays
Can reach from heaven to earth,
And hot a tin pan newly scoured
Placed on the blazing hearth,
And hot a boy's ears boxed for doing
That which he hadn't orter,
But hotter still is the love I bear
For Professor Sanborn's daughter.
with chorus as before.
I threw down lovely flowers and timidly thanked them. They applauded, sang a rollicking farewell, and were gone. If I could have removed my heart painlessly, I believe that would have gone out too. They had gone, but the blissful memory! I leaned on the window sill, and the moon with its bounteous mellow radiance filled my room. But listen, hark! Only two doors beyond, the same voices, the same melodious tones, and alas, yes, the same words, every verse and the same chorus—same masculine fervour—but somebody else's daughter.
A breakfast comment: "It's a terrible nuisance this caterwauling in the middle of the night in front of the house!" For once I was silent.