The flower that smiles to-day To-morrow dies; All that we wish to stay Tempts and then flies. What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright. Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair! [But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy, and all Which ours we call.]1 [Whilst]2 skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream [thou]3 -- and from thy sleep Then wake to weep.
Twelve Songs , opus 110
by Richard Stöhr (1874 - 1967)
1. Mutablility  [sung text checked 1 time]
Authorship:
- by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Mutability", first published 1824
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Změna", Prague, J. Otto, first published 1901
1 omitted by D. E. Thomas
2 Stöhr: "While"
3 Stöhr: "then"
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Johann Winkler
2. To a Butterfly  [sung text checked 1 time]
Stay near me - do not take thy flight! A little longer stay in sight! Much converse do I find I thee, Historian of my infancy ! Float near me; do not yet depart! Dead times revive in thee: Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art! A solemn image to my heart, My father's family! Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days, The time, when, in our childish plays, My sister Emmeline and I Together chased the butterfly! [A very hunter did I rush Upon the prey: - with leaps and spring I followed on from brake to bush; But she, God love her, feared to brush The dust from off its wings.]1
Authorship:
- by William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850), "To a Butterfly"
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View original text (without footnotes)1 omitted by Stöhr
Researcher for this page: Johann Winkler
3. Epitaph  [sung text checked 1 time]
Wouldst thou hear what man can say In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die; Which in life did harbour give To more virtue than doth live. If at all she had a fault, Leave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth, Th' other let it sleep with death: Fitter, where it died to tell, Than that it [liv'd]1 at all. Farewell.
Authorship:
- by Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637), "Epitaph"
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Stöhr: "lived"
Researcher for this page: Johann Winkler
4. To Meadows  [sung text checked 1 time]
Ye have been fresh and green, Ye have been [fill'd]1 with flowers; And ye the walks have been Where maids have spent their houres. You have beheld how they With wicker arks did come, To kisse and beare away The richer couslips home. Y'ave heard them sweetly sing. And seen them in a round; Each virgin, like a spring, With hony-succles crown'd. But now, we see none here, Whose silv'rie feet did tread, And with dishevell'd haire, Adorn'd this smoother mead. Like unthrifts, having spent Your stock, and needy grown, [Y'are left]2 here to lament Your poore estates alone.
Authorship:
- by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674), "To meddowes"
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View original text (without footnotes)Confirmed with The Poetical Works of Robert Herrick, Volume 1, London: William Pickering, MDCCCXXV, pages 152-153.
1 Stöhr: "filled"2 Stöhr: "You left her"
Research team for this page: Sharon Krebs [Guest Editor] , Johann Winkler
5. The Palm and the Pine  [sung text checked 1 time]
In the far North stands a Pine-tree, lone, Upon a wintry height; It sleeps: around it snows have thrown A covering of white. It dreams forever of a Palm That, far [i']1 the Morning-land, Stands silent in a most sad calm Midst of the burning sand.
Authorship:
- by Sidney Lanier (1842 - 1881), "The Palm and the Pine"
Based on:
- a text in German (Deutsch) by Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856), no title, appears in Buch der Lieder, in Lyrisches Intermezzo, no. 33
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Stöhr: "in"
Researcher for this page: Johann Winkler
6. Indian Summer  [sung text checked 1 time]
These are the days when birds come back, A very few, a bird or two, To take a backward look. These are the days when skies put on The old, old sophistries of June, — A blue and gold mistake. Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee, Almost thy [plausibility]1 Induces my belief, Till ranks of seeds their witness bear, And softly through the altered air Hurries a timed leaf! Oh, sacrament of summer days, Oh, last communion in the haze, Permit a child to join, Thy sacred emblems to partake, Thy consecrated bread to break, Taste thine immortal wine!
Authorship:
- by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title
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View original text (without footnotes)Confirmed with Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Boston: Little, Brown, 1924.
1 Stöhr: "possibility"Researcher for this page: Johann Winkler
7. Villanelle  [sung text checked 1 time]
A dainty thing's the Villanelle. Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme, It serves [its]1 purpose passing well. A double-clappered silver bell That must be made to clink in chime, A dainty [thing's]2 the Villanelle; And if you wish to flute a spell, Or ask a meeting 'neath [the]3 lime, It serves [its]1 purpose passing well. You must not ask of it the swell Of organs grandiose and sublime- A dainty thing's the Villanelle; And, filled with sweetness, as a shell Is filled with sound, and launched in time, It serves [its]1 purpose passing well. Still fair to see and good to smell As in the quaintness of its prime, A dainty thing's the Villanelle, It serves its purpose passing well.
Authorship:
- by William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903), "Villanelle"
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Stöhr: "the"
2 Stöhr: "thing"
3 Stöhr: "a"
Researcher for this page: Johann Winkler
8. The Black Vulture  [sung text checked 1 time]
Aloof within the day's enormous dome, He holds unshared the silence of the sky. Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry The eagle's empire and the falcon's home— Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam. And least of all he holds the human swarm— Unwitting now [that envious men]1 prepare To make their dream and its fulfilment one, When, poised above the [caldrons of the]1 storm, Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare His roads between the thunder and the sun.
Authorship:
- by George Sterling (1869 - 1926), "The Black Vulture"
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View original text (without footnotes)Confirmed with Kevin Starr, Americans and the Californian Dream 1850 - 1915, New York, 1973.
1 Stöhr: "that men"Researcher for this page: Johann Winkler
9. Love's Secret  [sung text checked 1 time]
Never seek to tell thy love Love that never told [can]1 be; For the gentle wind does move Silently, invisibly. I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart, [Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears]2 -- Ah, she [doth]3 depart. Soon as she was gone from me [A traveller came by]4 Silently, invisibly -- [He took her with a sigh]5.
Authorship:
- by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "Love's Secret"
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Stöhr: "shall"
2 Stöhr: "Trembling between hope and fear"
3 Stöhr: "did"
4 Stöhr: "A boy chanced going by"
5 Leoni: "O, was no deny"
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Johann Winkler
10. Sunken Gold  [sung text checked 1 time]
In dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships; And gold doubloons, that from the drowned hand fell, Lie nestled in the ocean-flower's bell With love's old gifts, once kissed by long-drowned lips. And round some wrought gold cup the sea-grass whips, And hides lost pearls, near pearls still in their shell, [Where]1 sea-weed forests fill each ocean dell And seek dim twilight with their restless tips. So lie the wasted gifts, the long-lost hopes, Beneath the now hushed surface of myself, In lonelier depths than where the diver gropes; They lie deep, deep; but I at times behold In doubtful glimpses, on some reefy shelf, The gleam of irrecoverable gold.
Authorship:
- by Eugene Lee-Hamilton (1845 - 1907)
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Stöhr: "When"
Researcher for this page: Johann Winkler
11. A Woman's Thought  [sung text checked 1 time]
I am a woman — therefore I may not Call to him, cry to him, Fly to him, Bid him delay not! Then when he comes to me, I must sit quiet; Still as a stone — All silent and cold. If my heart riot — Crush and defy it! Should I grow bold. Say one dear thing to him. All my life fling to him, Cling to him — What to atone Is enough for my sinning! This were the cost to me. This were my winning — That he were lost to me. Not as a lover At last if he part from me, Tearing my heart from me, Hurt beyond cure — Calm and demure Then must I hold me, In myself fold me. Lest he discover; Showing no sign to him By look of mine to him What he has been to me — How my heart turns to him, Follows him, yearns to him, Prays him to love me. Pity me, lean to me, Thou God above me!
Authorship:
- by Richard Watson Gilder (1844 - 1909), "A Woman's Thought"
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Confirmed with The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Boston & New York, 1908.
Researcher for this page: Johann Winkler
12. On Death  [sung text checked 1 time]
Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear: Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.
Authorship:
- by Walter Savage Landor (1775 - 1864), "On Death"
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Mi sovrasta la morte", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Confirmed with Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor, ed. by Sidney Colvin, London, 1882
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Johann Winkler