When Love Was A Child (Swedish Air.)
By Thomas Moore
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.