It was part of Poole's method to put the soliloquies into the form of songs, and so we find the lines beginning "O that this too too solid flesh would melt!" appearing in the following form:—
A ducat I'd give if a sure way I knew
How to thaw and resolve my stout flesh into dew!
How happy were I if no sin was self-slaughter!
For I'd then throw myself and my cares in the water.
Derry down, down, down, derry down.
How weary, how profitless,—stale, and how flat,
Seem to me all life's uses, its joys, and all that:
This world is a garden unweeded; and clearly
Not worth living for—things rank and gross hold it merely.
Derry down, etc.
Two months have scarce pass'd since dad's death, and my mother,
Like a brute as she is, has just married his brother.—
To wed such a bore!—but 'tis all too late now:
We can't make a silk purse of the ear of a sow.
Derry down, etc.
The time-honoured "To be or not to be" is sung in this version to the tune of "Here we go up, up, up":—
When a man becomes tired of his life,
The question is, "to be, or not to be?"
For before he dare finish the strife,
His reflections most serious ought to be.
When his troubles too numerous grow,
And he knows of no method to mend them,
Had he best bear them tamely, or no?—
Or by stoutly opposing them, end them?
Ri tol de rol, etc.
To die is to sleep—nothing more—
And by sleeping to say we end sorrow,
And pain, and ten thousand things more,—
Oh, I wish it were my turn to-morrow!
But, perchance, in that sleep we may dream,
For we dream in our beds very often—
Now, however capricious 't may seem,
I've no notion of dreams in a coffin.
Ri tol de rol, etc.
'Tis the doubt of our ending all snugly,
That makes us with life thus dispute;
Or who'd bear with a wife old and ugly,
Or the length of a chancery suit?
Or who would bear fardels, and take
Kicks, cuffs, frowns, and many an odd thing,
When he might his own quietus make,
And end all his cares with a bodkin?
Ri tol de rol, etc.
