O sing unto my roundelay, O drop the briny tear with me, Dance no more at holy-day, Like a running river be. My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow tree. (CHATTERTON: Minstrel's Roundelay from _Ælla_. ab. 1770.) The twentieth year is well-nigh past, Since first our sky was overcast; Ah, would that this might be the last! My Mary! (COWPER: _My Mary._ 1793.) Duncan Gray cam' here to woo-- Ha, ha, the wooing o't! On blithe Yule night, when we were fou-- Ha, ha, the wooing o't! Maggie coost her head fu' heigh, Looked asklent and unco skeigh, Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh; Ha, ha, the wooing o't! (BURNS: _Duncan Gray._ ab. 1790.) My heart is wasted with my woe, Oriana. There is no rest for me below, Oriana. When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow, And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, Oriana, Alone I wander to and fro, Oriana. (TENNYSON: _Ballad of Oriana._ ab. 1830.) Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, (Toll slowly) And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness-- Round our restlessness His rest. (ELIZABETH B. BROWNING: _Rhyme of the Duchess May._ ab. 1845.) "Ah! what white thing at the door has cross'd, Sister Helen? Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?" "A soul that's lost as mine is lost, Little brother!" (O Mother, Mary Mother, Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!) (ROSSETTI: _Sister Helen._ 1870.) Laetabundus Exultet fidelis chorus, Alleluia! Egidio psallat coetus Iste laetus, Alleluia! (ST. BERNARD: _De Nativitate Domini._) Sermone Marcus Tullius, Fortuna Cesar Julius Tibi non equantur. Tibi summa prudentia, Prefulgens et potentia Celesti dono dantur. (From a 12th c. MS.: _Regulae de Rhythmis._ In Schipper's _Englische Metrik_, vol. i. p. 354.) Quant li solleiz conviset en leon En icel tens qu'est ortus pliadon Perunt matin, Une pulcellet odit molt gent plorer Et son ami dolcement regreter, Ex si lli dis. (Early French version of the _Song of Songs_, quoted in LEWIS's _Foreign Sources of Modern English Versification_, p. 89.)