As on my roving way I go
Beneath the starlight’s gleaming,
Upon a bank of feathery snow
I find a moonbeam dreaming;
I crouch beside the pretty miss
And cautiously I give her
My gentlest, tend’rest little kiss,
And frown to see her shiver.
Oho! Oho!
On bed of snow
Beneath the starlight’s gleaming,
I steal the bliss
Of one sweet kiss
From that fair friend a-dreaming.
I scamper up the gloomy street
With wild, hilarious shrieking,
And each rheumatic sign I meet
I set forthwith to creaking;
The sooty chimneys wheeze and sigh
In dismal apprehension,
And when the rich man passes by
I pay him marked attention.
Oho! Oho!
With gusts of snow
I love to pelt and blind him;
But I kiss the curls
Of the beggar-girls
Who crouch in the dark behind him.
In summer-time a posy fair
Bloomed on the distant heather,
And every day we prattled there
And sang our songs together;
And thither, as we sang or told
Of love’s unchanging glory,
A maiden and her lover strolled,
Repeating our sweet story.
“Oho! Oho!”
We murmur low —
The maid and I, together;
For summer’s sped
And love is dead
Upon the distant heather.
