by George Herbert (1593 - 1633)
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright
Language: English
Available translation(s): FRE
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridall of the earth and skie: The dew shall weep thy fall to night; For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye: Thy root is ever in its grave And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie; My musick shows ye have your closes, And all must die. Onely a sweet and vertuous soul, Like season'd timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives.
R. Vaughan Williams sets stanzas 1, 3-4
About the headline (FAQ)
Authorship:
- by George Herbert (1593 - 1633), "Vertue", appears in The Temple, first published 1633 [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 James Whitton Aikman (b. 1959), "Vertue" [ baritone and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Barney Childs (1926 - 2000), "Virtue" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Matthew Emery (b. 1991), "Vertue" [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Olivier Greif (1950 - 2000), "Vertue", op. 310 no. 6 (1995) [ voice and piano ], from Les chants de l'âme, no. 6 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Michael (Dewar) Head (1900 - 1976), "Sweet day! so cool", 1919, published 1921 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Jeffrey Thomas King , "Virtue", 1965 [ SSA chorus a cappella ], unpublished [sung text not yet checked]
- by Nick Peros (b. 1963), "Virtue" [sung text checked 1 time]
- by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Sweet Day", op. 615 (1962) [sung text not yet checked]
- by Adam Taylor (b. 1981), "Sweet day", op. 28 no. 1 (2003) [ SSAA chorus a cappella ], from Four Songs of Calm, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958), "Sweet day", 1896, stanzas 1,3-4 [sung text checked 1 time]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Vertu", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Richard Flatter) , "Die Seele", appears in Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten, first published 1936
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 99