Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd
To add to golden numbers golden numbers?
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour wears a lovely face;
Then hey, nonny nonny--hey, nonny nonny!

Canst drink the waters of the crystal spring?
O sweet content!
Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
O punishment!
Then he that patiently want's burden bears
No burden bears, but is a king, a king!
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour wears a lovely face;
Then hey, nonny nonny--hey, nonny nonny!

There, in lines obviously written for music, you have our sedate
sentence, 'Contentment breeds Happiness,' converted to mere emotion. Note
(to use Coleridge's word) the 'excitement' of it. There are but two plain
indicative sentences in the two stanzas--(1) 'Honest labour wears a
lovely face' (used as a refrain), and (2) 'Then he that patiently want's
burden bears no burden bears, but is a king, a king!' (heightened
emotionally by inversion and double repetition). Mark throughout how
broken is the utterance; antithetical question answered by exclamations:
both doubled and made more antithetical in the second stanza: with
cunning reduplicated inversions to follow, and each stanza wound up by an
outburst of emotional nonsense--'hey, nonny nonny--hey, nonny nonny!'--as
a man might skip or whistle to himself for want of thought.