If you become a nun, dear, A friar I will be; In any cell you run, dear, Pray look behind for me. The roses all turn pale, too; The doves all take the veil, too; The blind will see the show. What! you become a nun, my dear? I'll not believe it, no!
If you become a nun, dear, The bishop Love will be; The Cupids every one, dear, Will chant "We trust in thee." The incense will go sighing, The candles fall a-dying, The water turn to wine; What! you go take the vows, my dear? You may--but they'll be mine! --_Leigh Hunt_
"Why should not Wattle do For Mistletoe? Ask'd one--they were but two-- Where wattles grow.
He was her lover, too, Who urged her so-- "Why should not Wattle do For Mistletoe?"
A rose-cheek rosier grew; Rose-lips breathed low-- "Since it is here--and You-- I hardly know Why Wattle should not do." --_Douglas Brook Wheelton Sladen_
There is a garden where lilies And roses are side by side; And all day between them in silence The silken butterflies glide.
I may not enter the garden, Tho' I know the road thereto; And morn by morn to the gateway I see the children go.
They bring back light on their faces; But they cannot bring back to me What the lilies say to the roses, Or the songs of the butterflies be. --_Francis Turner Palgrave_
Designed and Printed in the Shop of P. F. Volland Company Chicago
End of Project Gutenberg's A Little Book of Old Time Verse, by Various