Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

300 traditional songs, inc sheet music with full piano accompaniment & lyrics.

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	I'D BE A BUTTERFLY.		223 EH
	Oh, could I pilfer the wand of a fairy, I'd have a pair of those beautiful wings; Their summer day's ramble is sportive and airy, They sleep in a rose when the nightingale sings. Those who have wealth must be watchful and wary, Power, alas! naught but misery brings; I'd be a butterfly, sportive and airy, Rocked in a rose when the nightingale sings.	What though you tell me each gay little rover, Shrinks from the breath of the first autumn day; Surely, 'tis better when summer is over, To die, when all fair things are fading away. Some in life's winter may toil to discover Means of procuring a weary delay: I'd be a butterfly, living a rover, Dying when fair things are fading away.
	Mr. Bayly afterwards made a little parody on his own song, which he entitled, " I'd be a Parody.'"
	Fd be a parody, made by a ninny, On some little song with a popular tune, Not worth a halfpenny, sold for a guinea, And sung in the Strand by the light of the moon. Pd never sigh for the sense of a Pliny, (Who cares for sense at St. James's in June ?) Pd be a parody, made by a ninny, And sung in the Strand by the light of the moon. Oh, could I pick up a thought or a stanza, I'd take a flight on another bard's wings, Turning his rhymes into extravaganza, Laugh at his harp, and then pilfer its strings!	When a poll-parrot can croak the cadenza A nightingale loves, he supposes he sings 1 Oh, never mind, I will pick up a stanza, Laugh at his harp, and then pilfer its strings! What though they tell me each metrical puppy, Can make of such parodies two pair a day, Mocking-birds think they obtain by each copy Paradise plumes for the parodied iay. Ladder of fame! if man can't reach the top, he Is right to sing just as high up as he may ; I'd be a parody made by a puppy, Who makes of such parodies two pair a day.
	THOSE EVENING BELLS. Thomas Moore is the author of this song, which is one of the " National Melodies." The air to which he arranged the words is called " The Bells of St. Petersburg."