Quotes from work
The Foresters

The Foresters or, Robin Hood and Maid Marian is a play written by Alfred Tennyson and first produced with success in New York in 1892. A set of incidental music in nine movements was composed for the play by Arthur Sullivan.


Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo
Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo
Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo
Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“Strike up a song, my friends, and then to bed.”

Act I, Scene III
The Foresters, Robin Hood and Maid Marion (1892)
Context: Friends,
I am only merry for an hour or two
Upon a birthday: if this life of ours
Be a good glad thing, why should we make us merry
Because a year of it is gone? but Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come
Whispering 'It will be happier;' and old faces
Press round us, and warm hands close with warm hands,
And thro' the blood the wine leaps to the brain
Like April sap to the topmost tree, that shoots
New buds to heaven, whereon the throstle rock'd
Sings a new song to the new year — and you,
Strike up a song, my friends, and then to bed.

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