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I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year, Ere I forget, or die, or move away, And we are done forever; by and by I shall forget you, as I said, but now, If you entreat me with your loveliest lie I will protest you with my favorite vow. I would indeed that love were longer-lived, And [vows]1 were not so brittle as they are, But so it is, and nature has contrived To struggle on without a break thus far, -- Whether or not we find what we are seeking Is idle, biologically speaking.
About the headline (FAQ)
View text without footnotes1 Wheeler: "oaths"
Text Authorship:
- by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), no title, appears in Four Sonnets, no. 4, first published 1922 [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 Jack Hamilton Beeson (b. 1921), "I shall forget you presently", 1992 [ voice and piano ], from Two Millay Sonnets, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Scott Wheeler (b. 1952), "I shall forget you", 1990 [ soprano or mezzo-soprano and piano ], from Wasting the Night, no. 3, Scott Wheeler Music [sung text checked 1 time]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Walter A. Aue) , "Ich werd' Dich bald vergessen, teurer Schatz", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2009-01-17
Line count: 14
Word count: 111
Ich werd' Dich bald vergessen, teurer Schatz, drum nutz ihn bestens, Deinen kurzen Tag, Dein Monat, Deinen kurzen Halbjahrsplatz - eh ich vergessen, sterben, wegzieh'n mag und mit uns zwei'n ist's Schluß; denn dann, demnächst, wie schon gesagt, vergeß ich Dich - doch g'rade nun, wenn Du mit süßen Lügen um mich flehst, werd' ich den liebsten Schwur des Sträubens tun. Ich wünschte schon, daß Liebe länger wär' und Schwüre nicht so brüchig, wie sie sind - allein so ist's, and die Natur bisher hat nur ein Ringen ohne End bestimmt: Ob, was wir suchen, wir auch finden werden ist, biologisch, ganz egal auf Erden.
Text Authorship:
- Singable translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2010 by Walter A. Aue, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.
Walter A. Aue. Contact: waue (AT) dal (DOT) ca
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Based on:
- a text in English by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), no title, appears in Four Sonnets, no. 4, first published 1922
This text was added to the website: 2010-03-26
Line count: 14
Word count: 102