Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories
300 traditional songs, inc sheet music with full piano accompaniment & lyrics.
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WIFE, CHILDREN, AND FRIENDS. |
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When the black-lettered list to the gods was presented,— The list of what Fate to each mortal intends,— At the long string of ills, a kind goddess relented, And slipped in three blessings : wife, children, and friends. In vain surly Pluto maintained he was cheated; For justice divine could not compass its ends; The scheme of Man's penance, he swore, was defeated, For earth became heaven with wife, children, and friends.
The soldier, whose deeds live immortal in story,
Whom duty to far distant latitudes sends, With transport would barter whole ages of glory, For one happy day with wife, children, and friends. Though valour still glows in his life's waning embers, The death-wounded tar who his colors defends Drops a tear of regret, as he, dying, remembers, How blessed was his home with wife, children, and friends. |
Though spice-breathing gales o'er his caravan hover, — Though round him Arabia's whole fragrance ascends, The merchant still thinks of the woodbines that cover The bower where he sat with wife, children, and friends. The day-spring of youth, still unclouded by sorrow,
Alone on itself for enjoyment depends: But drear is the twilight of age, if it borrow No warmth from the smiles of wife, children, and friends.
Let the breath of renown ever freshen and nourish The laurel which o'er her dead favorite bends; O'er me wave the willow, and long may it flourish, Bedewed with the tears of wife, children, and friends. Let us drink, — for my song, growing graver and graver, To subjects too solemn insensibly tends ; Let us drink, pledge me high, — love and virtue shall flavor The glass which I fill to wife, children, and friends. |
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