When Love Was a Child
(Swedish Air.)
When Love was a child, and went idling round,
‘Mong flowers the whole summer’s day,
One morn in the valley a bower he found,
So sweet, it allured him to stay.
O’erhead, from the trees, hung a garland fair,
A fountain ran darkly beneath;—
’Twas Pleasure had hung up the flowerets there;
Love knew it, and jumped at the wreath.
But Love didn’t know—and, at his weak years,
What urchin was likely to know?—
That Sorrow had made of her own salt tears
The fountain that murmured below.
He caught at the wreath—but with too much haste,
As boys when impatient will do—
It fell in those waters of briny taste,
And the flowers were all wet through.
This garland he now wears night and day;
And, tho’ it all sunny appears
With Pleasure’s own light, each leaf, they say,
Still tastes of the Fountain of Tears.