(Fair Helen; old ballad.)
O sing unto my roundelay,
O drop the briny tear with me,
Dance no more at holy-day,
Like a running river be.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow tree.
(Chatterton: Minstrel's Roundelay from Ælla. ab. 1770.)
The twentieth year is well-nigh past,
Since first our sky was overcast;
Ah, would that this might be the last!
My Mary!
(Cowper: My Mary. 1793.)
Duncan Gray cam' here to woo—
Ha, ha, the wooing o't!
On blithe Yule night, when we were fou—
Ha, ha, the wooing o't!
Maggie coost her head fu' heigh,
Looked asklent and unco skeigh,
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh;
Ha, ha, the wooing o't!
(Burns: Duncan Gray. ab. 1790.)
My heart is wasted with my woe,
Oriana.
There is no rest for me below,
Oriana.
When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow,
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow,
Oriana,
Alone I wander to and fro,
Oriana.
(Tennyson: Ballad of Oriana. ab. 1830.)
Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,
(Toll slowly)
And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness—
Round our restlessness His rest.