I 've been roaming! I 've been roaming!
Where the meadow dew is sweet,
And like a queen I 'm coming
With its pearls upon my feet.
I 've been roaming! I 've been roaming!
O'er red rose and lily fair,
And like a sylph I 'm coming
With their blossoms in my hair.
I 've been roaming! I 've been roaming!
Where the honeysuckle creeps,
And like a bee I 'm coming
With its kisses on my lips.
I 've been roaming! I 've been roaming!
Over hill and over plain,
And like a bird I 'm coming
To my bower back again!
[Illustration: Full-page Plate]
_SYLVIA'S SONG._
The streams that wind amid the hills
And lost in pleasure slowly roam,
While their deep joy the valley fills,--
Even these will leave their mountain home;
So may it, Love! with others be,
But I will never wend from thee.
The leaf forsakes the parent spray,
The blossom quits the stem as fast;
The rose-enamour'd bird will stray
And leave his eglantine at last:
So may it, Love! with others be,
But I will never wend from thee.
_SERENADE._
FROM "SYLVIA": _Act IV. Scene I_.
Romanzo sings:
Awake thee, my Lady-love!
Wake thee, and rise!
The sun through the bower peeps
Into thine eyes!
Behold how the early lark
Springs from the corn!
Hark, hark how the flower-bird
Winds her wee horn!
The swallow's glad shriek is heard
All through the air!
The stock-dove is murmuring
Loud as she dare!
Apollo's winged bugleman
Cannot contain,
But peals his loud trumpet-call
Once and again!
Then wake thee, my Lady-love,
Bird of my bower!
The sweetest and sleepiest
Bird at this hour!
[Decoration]
[Decoration]