The Matin-Song Of Friar Tuck

I.

If souls could sing to heaven's high King
    As blackbirds pipe on earth,
How those delicious courts would ring
    With gusts of lovely mirth!
What white-robed throng could lift a song
    So mellow with righteous glee
As this brown bird that all day long
    Delights my hawthorn tree.
        Hark! That's the thrush
            With speckled breast
        From yon white bush
            Chaunting his best,
    Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!


II.

If earthly dreams be touched with gleams
    Of Paradisal air,
Some wings, perchance, of earth may glance
    Around our slumbers there;
Some breaths of may might drift our way
    With scents of leaf and loam,
Some whistling bird at dawn be heard
    From those old woods of home.
        Hark! That's the thrush
            With speckled breast
        From yon white bush
            Chaunting his best,
    Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!


III.

No King or priest shall mar my feast
    Where'er my soul may range.
I have no fear of heaven's good cheer
    Unless our Master change.
But when death's night is dying away,
    If I might choose my bliss,
My love should say, at break of day,
    With her first waking kiss:-
        Hark! That's the thrush
            With speckled breast,
        From yon white bush
            Chaunting his best,
    Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!