A good old Song

I have wander'd afar 'neath stranger skies,

And have revell'd amid their flowers,

I have lived in the light of Italian eyes,

And dream'd in Italian bowers,

While the wond'rous strains of their sunny clime

Have been trill'd to enchant mine ears,

But, oh! how I longed for the song and the time

When my heart could respond with its tears.

Then sing me a song, a good old song,

Not the foreign, the learn'd, the grand,—

But a simple song, a good old song

Of my own dear father-land.

I have heard, with the great, and the proud, and the gay,

All, all they would have me adore,

Of that music divine that, enraptur'd, they say,

Can be equall'd on earth never more,

And it may be their numbers indeed are divine,

Though they move not my heart through mine ears,

But a ballad old of the dear "langsyne"

Can alone claim my tribute of tears.

Then sing me a song, &c.

I have come from a far and a foreign clime

To mine own loved haunts once more,

With a yearning for all of my childhood's time,

And the dear home-sounds of yore,

And here if there yet be love for me,

O! away with those stranger lays,

And now let my only welcome be

An old song of my boyhood days.

Then sing me a song, &c.