When Love Was A Child (Swedish Air.)

When Love was a child, and went idling round,         'Mong flowers the whole summer's day,     One morn in the valley a bower he found,         So sweet, it allured him to stay.     O'erhead, from the trees, hung a garland fair,         A fountain ran darkly beneath;--     'Twas Pleasure had hung up the flowerets there;         Love knew it, and jumped at the wreath.     But Love didn't know--and, at his weak years,         What urchin was likely to know?--     That Sorrow had made of her own salt tears         The fountain that murmured below.     He caught at the wreath--but with too much haste,         As boys when impatient will do--     It fell in those waters of briny taste,         And the flowers were all wet through.     This garland he now wears night and day;         And, tho' it all sunny appears     With Pleasure's own light, each leaf, they say,         Still tastes of the Fountain of Tears.