Play, play, while as yet it is day:
While the sweet sunlight is warm on the brae!
Hark to the lark singing lay upon lay,
While the brown squirrel eats nuts on the spray
And in the apple-leaves chatters the jay!
Play, play, even as they!
What though the cowslips ye pluck will decay,
What though the grass will be presently hay?
What though the noise that ye make should dismay
Old Mrs. Clutterbuck over the way?
Play, play, for your locks will grow gray;
Even the marbles ye sport with are clay.

Play, ay in the crowded highway:
Was it not made for you? Yea, my lad, yea.
True that the babes you were bid to convey
Home may fall out or be stolen or stray;
True that the tip-cat you toss about may
Strike an old gentleman, cause him to sway,
Stumble, and p’raps be run o’er by a dray:
Still why delay? Play, my son, play!
Barclay and Perkins, not you, have to pay.

Play, play, your sonatas in A,
Heedless of what your next neighbour may say!
Dance and be gay as a faun or a fay,
Sing like the lad in the boat on the bay;
Sing, play—if your neighbours inveigh
Feebly against you, they’re lunatics, eh?
Bang, twang, clatter and clang,
Strum, thrum, upon fiddle and drum;
Neigh, bray, simply obey
All your sweet impulses, stop not or stay!
Rattle the “bones,” hit a tinbottom’d tray
Hard with the fireshovel, hammer away!
Is not your neighbour your natural prey?
Should he confound you, it’s only in play.