LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,139)
  • Text Authors (19,558)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803 - 1849)

A ho! A ho!
Language: English 
       A ho! A ho! 
    Love's horn doth blow, 
    And he will out a-hawking go. 
His shafts are light as beauty's sighs,
And bright as midnight's brightest eyes,
        And round his starry way 
The swan-winged horses of the skies,
With summer's music in their manes,
Curve their fair necks to zephyr's reins,
        And urge their graceful play.

        A ho! A ho! 
    Love's horn doth blow, 
    And he will out a-hawking go. 
The sparrows flutter round his wrist.
The feathery thieves that Venus kissed
        And taught their morning song, 
The linnets seek the airy list,
And swallows too, small pets of Spring,
Beat back the gale with swifter wing,
        And dart and wheel along.

        A ho! A ho! 
    Love's horn doth blow, 
    And he will out a-hawking go. 
Now woe to every gnat that skips
To filch the fruit of ladies' lips,
        His felon blood is shed; 
And woe to flies, whose airy ships
On beauty cast their anchoring bite,
And bandit wasp, that naughty wight,
        Whose sting is slaughter-red.

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803 - 1849), no title, appears in The Bride's Tragedy, first published 1822 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Denis ApIvor (1916 - 2004), "Aho! Aho! Love's horn doth blow", 1954, first performed 1954 [high voice and piano], from Songs of Thomas Lovell Beddoes [
     text not verified 
    ]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2010-04-28
Line count: 30
Word count: 169

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris