WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels cover

The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels

Chapter 73: SONG.
Open in WeRead

About This Book

The work assembles comic and macabre tales and poems that blend folk legend, ecclesiastical hagiography, and satirical pastiche. Entries range from ghost stories and ballads to dramatic sketches and playful parodies, shifting fluidly between eerie atmosphere and buoyant humor. Recurring features include witty wordplay, mock-serious moralizing, and imaginative transformations of traditional material; the arrangement alternates narrative episodes and lyrical lays, producing varied pacing and tone. Illustrations traditionally accompany the pieces, reinforcing their comic grotesque and enhancing scenes of the supernatural and the absurd.

I.

There sits a bird on yonder tree, More fond than Cushat Dove; There sits a bird on yonder tree, And sings to me of love. Oh! stoop thee from thine eyrie down! And nestle thee near my heart, For the moments fly,  And the hour is nigh, When thou and I must part, My love! When thou and I must part.

II.

In yonder covert lurks a Fawn, The pride of the sylvan scene; In yonder covert lurks a Fawn, And I am his only queen; Oh! bound from thy secret lair, For the sun is below the west; No mortal eye  May our meeting spy, For all are clos'd in rest, My love! Each eye is closed in rest.

III.

Oh, sweet is the breath of morn! When the sun's first beams appear; Oh! sweet is the shepherd's strain, When it dies on the listening ear; And sweet the soft voice which speaks The Wanderer's welcome home; But sweeter far  By yon pale mild star, With our true Love thus to roam, My dear! With our own true Love to roam!