(FRENCH AIR.)
While I touch the string,
Wreathe my brows with laurel,
For the tale I sing
Has, for once, a moral.
Common Sense, one night,
Tho' not used to gambols,
Went out by moonlight,
With Genius, on his rambles.
While I touch the string, etc.
Common Sense went on,
Many wise things saying;
While the light that shone
Soon set Genius straying.
One his eye ne'er raised
From the path before him;
T'other idly gazed
On each night-cloud o'er him.
While I touch the string, etc.
So they came, at last,
To a shady river;
Common Sense soon past,
Safe, as he doth ever;
While the boy, whose look
Was in Heaven that minute.
Never saw the brook,
But tumbled headlong in it!
While I touch the string, etc.
How the Wise One smiled,
When safe o'er the torrent,
At that youth, so wild,
Dripping from the current!
Sense went home to bed;
Genius, left to shiver
On the bank, 'tis said,
Died of that cold river!
While I touch the string, etc.
THEN, FARE THEE WELL.
(OLD ENGLISH AIR.)
Then, fare thee well, my own dear love,
This world has now for us
No greater grief, no pain above
The pain of parting thus,
Dear love!
The pain of parting thus.
Had we but known, since first we met,
Some few short hours of bliss,
We might, in numbering them, forget
The deep, deep pain of this,
Dear love!
The deep, deep pain of this.
But no, alas, we've never seen
One glimpse of pleasure's ray,
But still there came some cloud between,
And chased it all away,
Dear love!
And chased it all away.