O might I but my Patrick love!
Beethoven, Ludwig van
O might I but my Patrick love!
My mother scolds severely,
And tells me I shall wretched prove,
Because I love him dearly!
In vain she rates me o'er and o'er
With lessons cold and endless;
It only makes me love him more,
To find him poor and friendless.
Refrain:
Oh! Patrick, fly from me,
Or I am lost for ever -
Oh! Fortune kinder be,
Nor thus two Lovers sever.
What bliss, to me my Patrick cries,
In splendour and in riches?
He says, we love too little prize,
That gold too much bewitches!
More blest the lark, tho' hard its doom
Whene'er the winter rages,
Than birds, he says, of finer plume,
That mope in gilded cages.
(
Refrain
He tells me when the bosom's warm,
We mock the storm that's blowing,
That honest hearts can take no harm
Tho' hard the world be going.
He says - ah me! I'm sore afraid
Lest I from duty falter;
I wish he could as soon persuade
The mother as the daughter.
(
Refrain