LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,158)
  • Text Authors (19,576)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,115)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by William Schwenck Gilbert (1836 - 1911)

The distant shore
Language: English 
A maiden sat at her door.
And sighed as she looked at the sea:
"I've a dear, dear love on a distant shore
A-dying for news of me."
And the wind was listening near,
And saw that the maid was fair
So the kind wind whispered a hope in her ear
As he played with her bright brown hair:
"Be of good cheer, sweetheart,
I fly to that distant shore,
Thy lover I'll tell thou lovest him well,
Ever and evermore."	

The maiden dried her eyes,
And a smile shone over her face,
For she saw bright hope in the changing skies
As the wind flew off apace.
And she bade the kind wind good speed,
"Hurry, O Wind," said she,
"Oh, say that I love him indeed and indeed,"
And the wind cried over the sea:
"Be of good cheer, sweetheart,
I fly to that distant shore,
Thy lover I'll tell thou lovest him well,
Ever and evermore."

The wind tore over the wave,
Scattering ocean spray,
But alack! the lover he flew to save,
He met on his homeward way.
And his good ship sank in the gale,
And ev'ry soul beside,
And the wind came sobbing to tell the tale,
And the maiden drooped and died.
Be of good cheer, poor heart,
At rest on a distant shore,
Where thou and thy love walk hand in hand
Ever and evermore.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Schwenck Gilbert (1836 - 1911) [author's text not yet checked 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 Arthur Sullivan, Sir (1842 - 1900), "The distant shore", published 1874 [voice and piano], Chappell & Co. [ sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this page: Andrew Schneider [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2017-12-26
Line count: 36
Word count: 233

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris