One night as young Colin lay musing in bed 
With a heart full of love and a vapourish head, 
To wing the dull hours and his sorrows allay,
Thus sweetly he sang of his wedding-day: 
  "What would I give for a wedding-day!
  Who would not wish for a wedding-day 
  Wealth and ambition I'd toss ye away,
  With all ye can boast, for a wedding-day. 

"Should Heaven bid my wishes with freedom implore
One bliss for the anguish I suffered before,
For Jessie, dear Jessie, alone would I pray,
And grasp my whole wish on my wedding-day! 
  Blessed be the approach of my wedding-day!
  Hail, my dear nymph and my wedding-day!
  Earth smile more verdant and heaven shine more gay! 
  For happiness dawns with my wedding-day."

But Luna, who equally sovereign presides
O'er the hearts of the ladies and flow of the tides,
Unhappily changing, soon changed his wife's mind:
0 fate, could a wife prove so constant and kind! 
  "Why was I born to a wedding-day? 
  Cursed, ever cursed, be my wedding-day." 
  Colin, poor Colin, thus changes his lay, 
  And dates all his plagues from his wedding-day.

Ye bachelors, warned by the shepherd's distress, 
Be taught from your freedom to measure your bliss,
Nor fall to the witchcraft of beauty a prey, 
And blast all your joys on your wedding-day. 
  Horns are the gift of a wedding-day;
  Want and a scold crown a wedding-day; 
  Happy and gallant who, wise when he may, 
  Prefers a stout rope to a wedding-day!