Thither came three sportsmen,
Nightingale to shoot at.
She implored the sportsmen,
"Shoot me not, ye sportsmen!
"Shoot me not, ye sportsmen!
I will give you music,
In the verdant garden,
On the crimson rose-tree."
But the sportsmen seize her;
They deceive the songster,
In a cage confine her,
Give her to their loved one.
Nightingale will sing not—
Hangs its head in silence:
Then the sportsmen bear her
To the verdant forests.
Soon her song is waken'd;
Woe! woe! woe betide us,
Friend from friend divided,
Bird from forest banish'd!"
BROTHERLESS SISTERS.
Two solitary sisters, who
A brother's fondness never knew,
Agreed, poor girls, with one another,
That they would make themselves a brother:
They cut them silk, as snow-drops white;
And silk, as richest rubies bright;
They carved his body from a bough
Of box-tree from the mountain's brow;