Then they began to sing
That extremely lovely thing,
"Scherzando! ma non troppo, ppp."

Then they began to sing
That extremely lovely thing,
"Scherzando! ma non troppo, ppp."

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes
And interchanged love tokens with my child;
Thou hast read more

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes
And interchanged love tokens with my child;
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love.

Sang in tones of deep emotion
Songs of love and songs of longing.

Sang in tones of deep emotion
Songs of love and songs of longing.

At every close she made, th' attending throng
Replied, and bore the burden of the song:
So read more

At every close she made, th' attending throng
Replied, and bore the burden of the song:
So just, so small, yet in so sweet a note,
It seemed the music melted in the throat.

Sweetest the strain when in the song
The singer has been lost.

Sweetest the strain when in the song
The singer has been lost.

Every night he comes
With musics of all sorts, and songs composed
To her unworthiness. It nothing read more

Every night he comes
With musics of all sorts, and songs composed
To her unworthiness. It nothing steads us
To chide him from our eaves, for he persists
As if his life lay on't.

His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul
And lap it in Elysium.

Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul
And lap it in Elysium.

When I but hear her sing, I fare
Like one that raises, holds his ear
To some read more

When I but hear her sing, I fare
Like one that raises, holds his ear
To some bright star in the supremest Round;
Through which, besides the light that's seen
There may be heard, from Heaven within,
The rests of Anthems, that the Angels sound.