From Ballads & Legends of Cheshire edited by Egerton Leigh (London: Longmans & Co., 1867), page 172:


A BOWMEETING SONG.
Sung at the meeting of Cheshire Archers at Arley Hall, 1851.

1. The tent is pitched, the target reared, the ground is measured out,
For the weak arm sixty paces, and one hundred for the stout;
Come gather ye together then, the youthful and the fair,
And poet's lay to distant day the victor shall declare.

2. Let busy fingers lay aside the needle and the thread,
To prick the golden canvas with a pointed arrow head;
Ye sportsmen quit the stubble, ye fishermen the stream,
Fame and glory stand before you, brilliant eyes around you beam.

3. All honour to the long bow, which many a battle won
Ere powder blazed or bullet flew from arquebus or gun;
All honour to the long bow, which merry men of yore
With hound and horn at early morn in greenwood forest bore.

4. Oh famous is the archer's sport, 't was honoured long ago;
The god of love, the god of wit, bore both of them a bow;
Love laughs to-day in beauty's eye and blushes in her cheek,
And wit is heard in every word that merry archers speak.

5. The archer's heart, though like his bow a tough and sturdy thing,
Is pliant still and yielding when affection pulls the string;
All his words and all his actions are like arrows pointed well
To hit that golden centre where true love and friendship dwell.

6. They tell us in that outline which the lips of beauty show
How Cupid found a model for his heart-subduing bow,
The arrows in his quiver are the glances from her eye,
A feather from love's wing it is that makes the arrow fly.