Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 2

Ancient Songs, Ballads, & Dance Tunes, Sheet Music & Lyrics - online book

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576
ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC.
The following is the old tune, with the first stanza of the old words Gracefully.
DULCE DOMUM. "The tradition connected -with this song is, that a Wykehamist, being for some misdemeanor confined to his rooms at Winchester, during a vacation, and thus disappointed in his expectation of returning home, he composed and set this song to music, while languishing for domestic endearments, and that incessantly playing it to relieve his heart-ache, he pined away and died." " And see in durance the fast-fading boy,
Midst Wykeham's walls his dulcet sorrows heave; Fled are his fairy dreams of homely joy.
Ah! frowns too chilling, that his soul bereave Of all that frolic fancy long'd to weave In his paternal woods ! His hands he wrings
In anguish ! Yet some balm his sorrows leave To soothe his fainting spirits, as he sings, And suits to every sigh the sweetly-warbling strings. 0 he had notch'd, unweeting of distress,
The hours of school-boy toil! Nor irksome flew