The Coy One / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

ONE Spring-morning bright and fair,

Roam'd a shepherdess and sang;

Young and beauteous, free from care,

Through the fields her clear notes rang:

So, Ia, Ia! le ralla, &c.

Of his lambs some two or three

Thyrsis offer'd for a kiss;

First she eyed him roguishly,

Then for answer sang but this:

So, Ia, Ia! le ralla, &c.

Ribbons did the next one offer,

And the third, his heart so true

But, as with the lambs, the scoffer

Laugh'd at heart and ribbons too,--

Still 'twas Ia! le ralla, &c.