Page:Poems Cook.djvu/283

There was a man in olden time,
 And a troubadour was he;
Whose passing chant and lilting rhyme
 Had mighty charms for me.

My eyes grew big with a sparkling stare,
 And my heart began to swell,
When I heard his loud song filling the air
 About "Young lambs to sell!"

His flocks were white as the falling snow,
 With collars of shining gold;
And I chose from the pretty ones "all of a row,"
 With a joy that was untold.
Oh, why did the gold become less bright,
Why did the soft fleece lose its white,
 And why did the child grow old?

'Twas a blithe, bold song the old man sung;
The words came fast, and the echoes rung,
 Merry and free as a "marriage bell;"
And a right good troubadour was he,
For the hive never swarm'd to the chinking key,
As the wee things did when they gather'd in glee
 To his eloquent cry—"Young lambs to sell!"

Ah, well-a-day! it hath pass'd away,
With my holiday pence and my holiday play—
I wonder if I could listen again,
As I listen'd then to that old man's strain.

 

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And there was "a cry," in the days gone by,
That ever came when my pillow was nigh;
When, tired and spent, I was passively led
By a mother's hand to my own sweet bed—

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