by William Blake (1757 - 1827)
Parting is hard, and death is terrible
Language: English
[Parting is hard, and death is terrible;]1 I seem to walk through a deep valley, far from the light of day, alone and comfortless! The damps of death fall thick upon me! Horrors stare me in the face! I look behind, there is no returning; Death follows after me; I walk in regions of Death, where no tree is; without a lantern to direct my steps, without a staff to support me.
About the headline (FAQ)
View original text (without footnotes)1 not set by Davies; other changes may exist not noted.
Authorship:
- by William Blake (1757 - 1827), no title, appears in The Couch of Death, an excerpt from a longer prose section [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by (Henry) Walford Davies, Sir (1869 - 1941), "The Couch of Death", published c1934 [bass, soprano, chorus, strings, and organ ad libitum], from the cantata Ah! Gentle May I lay me down, no. 1, London: Oxford University Press ; Welsh National Council of Music [text not verified]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2010-04-15
Line count: 10
Word count: 72