GAY, John

The Beggar's Opera, Air Xxii

Youth's the season made for joys,

Love is then our duty;

She alone who that employs,

Well deserves her beauty.

Let's be gay,

While we may,

Beauty's a flower despis'd in decay.

Let us drink and sport to-day,

Ours is not tomorrow.

Love with youth flies swift away,

Age is nought but sorrow.

Dance and sing,

Time's on the wing,

Life never knows the return of spring.


Rural Sports: A Georgic

Now, sporting o'er the limpid stream,

Where shadows play and sunbeams gleam,

The finnish nation lightly glides,

With silver scales and burnished sides.

Around the reed the minnow plays,

unconscious of the fatal maze,

While hovering o'er the glassy wave,

The angler seeks the prize to save.

How sweet the calm, how pure the air,

Far from the city's noise and care!

Here nature speaks in every breeze,

Whispering through the leafy trees,

And lulls the troubled mind to rest

Upon her soft, maternal breast.

Black-eyed Susan

All in the Downs the fleet was moored,

The streamers waving in the wind,

When black-eyed Susan came aboard;

"O, where shall I my true-love find?

Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true

If my sweet William sails among the crew.

…..

"O Susan, Susan, lovely dear,

My vows shall ever true remain;

Let me kiss off that falling tear;

We only part to meet again.

Change as ye list, ye winds; my heart shall be

The faithful compass that still points to thee.

…..

The boatswain gave the dreadful word,

The sails their swelling bosom spread;

No longer must she stay aboard:

They kissed, she sighed, he hung his head.

Her lessening boat unwilling rows to land;

"Adieu!" she cried; and waved her lily hand.

Acis And Galatea

Love in her eyes sits playing,

And sheds delicious death;

Love on her lips is straying,

And warbling in her breath;

Love on her breast sits panting,

And swells with soft desire;

Nor grace nor charm is wanting

To set the heart on fire.

O ruddier than the cherry!

O sweeter than the berry!

O Nymph more bright

Than moonshine night,

Like kidlings blithe and merry!

Ripe as the melting cluster!

No lily has such lustre;

Yet hard to tame

As raging flame,

And fierce as storms that bluster.