Live we like the gods above; This is wisdom, this is truth: Chase the joys of tender love In the leisure of our youth! Keep the vows we swore together, Lads, obey that ordinance; Seek the fields in sunny weather, Where the laughing maidens dance. Like a dream our prime is flown, Prisoned in a study; Sport and folly are youth's own, Tender youth and ruddy. There the lad who lists may see Which among the maids is kind: There young limbs deliciously Flashing through the dances wind: While the girls their arms are raising, Moving, winding o'er the lea, Still I stand and gaze, and gazing They have stolen the soul of me! Like a dream our prime is flown, Prisoned in a study; Sport and folly are youth's own, Tender youth and ruddy. XV. A separate Section can be devoted to songs in the manner of the early French pastoral. These were fashionable at a remote period in all parts of Europe; and I have already had occasion, in another piece of literary history, to call attention to the Italian madrigals of the fourteenth century composed in this species.[30] Their point is mainly this: A man of birth and education, generally a dweller in the town, goes abroad into the fields, lured by fair spring weather, and makes love among trees to a country wench. The _Vagi_ turn the pastoral to their own purpose, and always represent the greenwood lover as a _clericus_. One of these rural nieces has a pretty opening stanza:-- "When the sweet Spring was ascending, Not yet May, at April's ending, While the sun was heavenward wending, Stood a girl of grace transcending Underneath the green bough, sending Songs aloft with pipings." Another gives a slightly comic turn to the chief incident. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 30: See _Renaissance in Italy_, vol. iv. p. 156.] A PASTORAL. No. 24. There went out in the dawning light A little rustic maiden; Her flock so white, her crook so slight, With fleecy new wool laden. Small is the flock, and there you'll see The she-ass and the wether; This goat's a he, and that's a she, The bull-calf and the heifer. She looked upon the green sward, where A student lay at leisure: "What do you there, young sir, so fair?" "Come, play with me, my treasure!" A third seems to have been written in the South, perhaps upon the shores of one of the Italian lakes--Como or Garda. THE MULBERRY-GATHERER. No. 25. In the summer's burning heat, When the flowers were blooming sweet, I had chosen, as 'twas meet, 'Neath an olive bough my seat; Languid with the glowing day, Lazy, careless, apt for play.