The people love their ancient songs, and will, While yet a people, love and keep them still: These lays are as their mother; they recal, Fond thoughts of mother, sister, friends, and all The many _little things_ that please the heart-- The dreams, the hopes, from which we cannot part: These songs are as sweet waters, where we find, Health in the sparkling wave that nerves the mind. In ev'ry home, at ev'ry cottage door, By ev'ry fireside, when our toil is o'er, These songs are round us, near our cradles sigh, And to the grave attend us when we die. Oh! think, cold critics! 'twill be late and long, Ere time shall sweep away this flood of song! There are who bid this music sound no more, And you can hear them, nor defend--deplore! You, who were born where its first daisies grew, Have fed upon its honey, sipp'd its dew, Slept in its arms and wakened to its kiss, Danced to its sounds, and warbled to its tone-- You can forsake it in an hour like this! --Yes, weary of its age, renounce--disown-- And blame one minstrel who is true--alone! For me, truth to my eyes made all things plain; At Paris, the great fount, I did not find The waters pure, and to my stream again I come, with saddened and with sobered mind; And since, no more enchanted, now I rate The little country far above the great. For you--who seem her sorrows to deplore, You, seated high in power, the first among, Beware! nor make her cause of grief the more; Believe her mis'ry, nor condemn her tongue. Methinks you injure where you seek to heal, If you deprive her of that only weal. We love, alas! to sing in our distress; It seems the bitterness of woe is less; But if we may not in our language mourn, What will the polish'd give us in return? Fine sentences, but all for us unmeet-- Words full of grace, even such as courtiers greet: A deck'd-out Miss, too delicate and nice To walk in fields, too tender and precise To sing the chorus of the poor, or come When Labour lays him down fatigued at home. To cover rags with gilded robes were vain-- The rents of poverty would show too plain. How would this dainty dame, with haughty brow, Shrink at a load, and shudder at a plough! Sulky, and piqued, and silent would she stand As the tired peasant urged his team along: No word of kind encouragement at hand, For flocks no welcome, and for herds no song! Yet we will learn, and you shall teach-- Our people shall have double speech: One to be homely, one polite, As you have robes for diff'rent wear, But this is all:--'tis just and right, And more our children will not bear. Lest we a troop of buzzards own, Where nightingales once sang alone.