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!