WOMAN SPEAKER.
In innocence and youth complaining,
Next appear’d a lovely maid,
Affliction o’er each feature reigning,
Kindly came in beauty’s aid; 95
Every grace that grief dispenses,
Every glance that warms the soul,
In sweet succession charmed the senses,
While pity harmonized the whole. ‘The garland of beauty’—’tis thus she would say— 100
‘No more shall my crook or my temples adorn,
I’ll not wear a garland—Augusta’s away,
I’ll not wear a garland until she return;
But alas! that return I never shall see,
The echoes of Thames shall my sorrows proclaim, 105
There promised a lover to come—but, O me!
’Twas death,—’twas the death of my mistress that came.
But ever, for ever, her image shall last,
I’ll strip all the spring of its earliest bloom;
On her grave shall the cowslip and primrose be cast, 110
And the new-blossomed thorn shall whiten her tomb.’
SONG. BY A WOMAN.—PASTORALE.
With garlands of beauty the queen of the May
No more will her crook or her temples adorn;
For who’d wear a garland when she is away,
When she is remov’d, and shall never return. 115
On the grave of Augusta these garlands be plac’d,
We’ll rifle the spring of its earliest bloom,
And there shall the cowslip and primrose be cast,
And the new-blossom’d thorn shall whiten her tomb.
CHORUS.—ALTRO MODO.
On the grave of Augusta this garland be plac’d, 120
We’ll rifle the spring of its earliest bloom,
And there shall the cowslip and primrose be cast,
And the tears of her country shall water her tomb.
SONG
FROM ‘SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER’
LET school-masters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning;
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives ‘genus’ a better discerning.
Let them brag of their heathenish gods, 5
Their Lethes, their Styxes, and Stygians:
Their Quis, and their Quaes, and their Quods,
They’re all but a parcel of Pigeons.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.
When Methodist preachers come down
A-preaching that drinking is sinful, 10
I’ll wager the rascals a crown
They always preach best with a skinful.
But when you come down with your pence,
For a slice of their scurvy religion,
I’ll leave it to all men of sense, 15
But you, my good friend, are the pigeon.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.
Then come, put the jorum about,
And let us be merry and clever;
Our hearts and our liquors are stout;
Here’s the Three Jolly Pigeons for ever. 20
Let some cry up woodcock or hare,
Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons;
But of all the birds in the air,
Here’s a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.