Six songs , opus 18

by Roger Quilter (1877 - 1953)

1. To wine and beauty
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Vulcan provide me such a cup, 
As Nestor used of old;
Try all your art to trim it up, 
And damask it round with gold.

Carve me thereon a curling vine,
A lovely girl and boy:
Their limbs in am'rous folds intwine,
The type of future joy.

Make it so large, when fill'd with Sack,
Up to the swelling brim,
That toasts in that delicious lake
Like ships at sea may swim.

Bacchus and Venus my guardians are,
Let wine and beauty reign!
With wine we'll drive away all care,
And then to love again.

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2. Where be you going
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Where be you going, you Devon Maid? 
   And what have ye there in the Basket? 
Ye tight little fairy just fresh from the dairy, 
   Will ye give me some cream if I ask it? 

 ... 

I love your hills, and I love your dales, 
   And I love your flocks a-bleating -- 
But O, on the heather to lie together, 
   With both our hearts a-beating! 

I'll put your Basket all safe in a nook, 
   Your shawl I'll hang up on the willow, 
And we will sigh in the daisy's eye 
   And kiss on a grass green pillow.

Text Authorship:

  • by John Keats (1795 - 1821), "The Devon maid", subtitle: "Stanzas Sent in a Letter to B. R. Haydon"

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3. The jocund dance  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
I love the [jocund]1 dance, 
The softly breathing song, 
Where innocent eyes do glance,
[And where]2 lisps the maiden's tongue.  

I love the laughing vale, 
I love the echoing [hills]3, 
Where mirth does never fail, 
And the jolly swain laughs his fill. 

I love the pleasant cot,
I love the innocent bow'r,
Where white and brown is our lot,
Or fruit in the midday hour. 

I love the oaken seat,
Beneath the oaken tree,
Where all [the old]4 villagers meet,
And laugh [our]5 sports to see. 

I love our neighbors all,
But Kitty, I [better love thee]6;
And love them [I ever]7  shall;
But thou art all to me.

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View original text (without footnotes)
1 Mitchell: "merry"
2 Mitchell: "Where"
3 Mitchell: "hill"
4 Mitchell: "the"
5 Mitchell: "my"
6 Mitchell: "love thee more"
7 Mitchell: "ever I"

4. Spring is at the door
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
The Spring is at the door: 
She bears a golden store, 
Her maund with yellow daffodils runneth o'er.

Her rosy feet are bare, 
The wind is in her hair, 
And O her eyes are April eyes, very fair.

After her footsteps follow
The mullein and the mallow;
She scatters golden powder on the sallow.

She brings the crocus white, 
And golden aconite: 
She brings desire and doubting and delight.

Text Authorship:

  • by Nora Hopper (1871 - 1906), "Spring song", from Songs of the morning, pp. 56-57, Grant Richards, London, first published 1900

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5. Through the sunny garden
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Through the sunny garden
  The humming bees are still;
The fir climbs the heather,
  The heather climbs the hill.

The low clouds have riven
  A little rift through.
The hill climbs to heaven,
  Far away and blue.

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6. The Valley and the Hill
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
O the high valley, the little low hill,
  And the cornfield over the sea,
The wind that rages and then lies still,
  And the clouds that rest and flee!

O the grey island in the rainbow haze,
  And the long thin spits of land,
The roughening pastures and the stony ways,
  And the golden flash of the sand!

 ... 

O the brown bracken, the black-berry bough,
  The scent of the gorse in the air!
I shall love them ever as I love them now,
  I shall weary in Heaven to be there!

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