Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

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

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	300	OUR FAMILIAR SONGS.
	They sought her that night, and they sought her next day, And they sought her in vain, till a week pass'd away! In the highest — the lowest — the loneliest spot, Young Lovell sought wildly, but found her not. And years flew by, and their grief at last, Was told as a sorrowful tale long past; And when Lovell appeared, the children cried, "See ! the old man weep for his fairy bride." Oh, the Mistletoe bough !		At lengtn an old chest, that had long lain hid, Was found in the Castle — they raised the lid, And a skeleton form lay mouldering there, With a bridal wreath in her clustering hair! Oh ! sad was her fate ! in sportive jest, She hid from her lord in the old oak chest; It closed with a spring! — and her bridal bloom Lay withering there in a living tomb. Oh, the Mistletoe bough !
	ALLAN WATER. Matthew Gregory Lewis, who wrote the words of " Allan Water," was born in Lon­don, England, in 1775. His father was wealthy, and at one time held the office of Dep­uty Secretary-at-War. The son is best known as a writer of tales which are characterized by frightful and revolting picturesqueness. He is so identified with the chief of these, "The Monk," that he is familiarly known as "Monk Lewis." He spent several years in Germany, but on his father's death, removed to inherited estates in Jamaica, West Indies. He was a genial, warm-hearted man. Byron says: " Lewis was a good man, a clever man, but a bore. My only revenge or consolation used to be setting him by the ears with some vivacious person who hated bores especially,—Madame de Stiiel, or Hobhouse, for example. But I liked Lewis; he was the jewel of a man, had he been better set, I don't mean person­ally,—but less tiresome; for he was tedious as well as contradictory to everything and everybody. Poor fellow! he died a martyr to his new riches,—of a second visit to Jamaica: * I'd give the lands of Deloraine Dark Musgrave were alive again!' That Is, I would give many a sugar-cane, Mat Lewis were alive again 1"