"Sweetheart, you thief, You're all my grief; And while I live, No comfort you'll give."
"If I but knew Where my sweetheart has gone, My heart wouldn't be Half so weary and lone."
"If you would live like a little bird, And have no cares to shend ye; Just marry, till the summer's round, Whome'er the spring may send ye."
"I come to see you; It pleased me to come; But I won't come any longer: It's too far from home.
"It wouldn't be too far, And it wouldn't be too rough, But, just understand, You're not near good enough."
Ivo sat at the table, absorbed in unpleasant reflections. He called to mind how at this hour he was usually to be found at his solitary lamp, struggling to penetrate the mysteries of creation and redemption,--how far he was then removed from all the doings of men, from all the wishes and aims of individuals; and he contrasted all this with what he now saw of the life led by his natural comrades in age and station. The nucleus of all their thoughts and actions was love, whether they made it the subject of wanton jibes or of strains of tender longing. Once more existence lay before him, severed, as by a sharp steel, into two irreconcilable halves,--the secular and the ecclesiastical. Babbett, who had watched him closely, had not failed to perceive the irksome twitches of the muscles of his face: she now approached the singers, saying,--
"Why, a'n't you ashamed of yourselves? Can't you sing a single decent song?"
[Illustration: Can't you sing a single decent song?]
"Well, if you don't like it, I like it the more; And, if you can do better, Just put in your oar."
"Yes," said Florian: "we'll sing a good song if you'll join in."
"'Is my wealth and my store'? no, I don't like that," said Constantine.
"Well, then, 'Ere the morning dew was wasted.'"
"Yes." Babbett sang lustily, and the others fell in:--
"Ere the morning dew was wasted, Ere the night-blown grass was shrunk, Ere another's eye had tasted, On my love mine eyes were sunk.
"Shoot the fox and rabbit early, Ere they travel in the wood; Love the girls ere they grow surly, Or forget how to be wooed.
"Till with vines the millstone teemeth, And the mill-race runs with wine, While life's current in us streameth, Thou art mine and I am thine."