If with me you’d fondly stray.
Over the hills and far away.

These lines read as an invitation to pastoral escape: the speaker urges a companion to “fondly stray” beyond familiar bounds, into a romanticized landscape of hills and distance. The phrasing suggests both affection (“fondly”) and a gentle transgression (“stray”), implying that love or companionship makes wandering desirable rather than aimless. “Over the hills and far away” functions as a refrain-like image of departure—leaving the immediate world for a freer, idealized elsewhere. In John Gay’s milieu, such language often aligns with early-18th-century pastoral and song traditions, where rural roaming becomes a metaphor for emotional liberty, courtship, or the lure of adventure.