| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910. | | | | Song: ‘My days have been so wondrous free’ | | By Thomas Parnell (1679–1718) |
| | | MY days have been so wondrous free, | |
| The little birds that fly | |
| With careless ease from tree to tree, | |
| Were but as bless’d as I. | |
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| Ask gliding waters, if a tear | 5 |
| Of mine increas’d their stream? | |
| Or ask the flying gales, if e’er | |
| I lent one sigh to them? | |
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| But now my former days retire | |
| And I’m by beauty caught, | 10 |
| The tender chains of sweet desire | |
| Are fix’d upon my thought. | |
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| Ye nightingales, ye twisting pines! | |
| Ye swains that haunt the grove! | |
| Ye gentle echoes, breezy winds! | 15 |
| Ye close retreats of love! | |
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| With all of nature, all of art, | |
| Assist the dear design; | |
| O teach a young, unpractis’d heart, | |
| To make my Nancy mine. | 20 |
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| The very thought of change I hate, | |
| As much as of despair; | |
| Nor ever covet to be great, | |
| Unless it be for her. | |
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| ’Tis true, the passion in my mind | 25 |
| Is mix’d with soft distress; | |
| Yet while the fair I love is kind, | |
| I cannot wish it less. | | | | |
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