Beloved, may your sleep be sound That have found it where you fed. What were all the world's alarms To mighty paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed That first dawn in Helen's arms? Sleep, beloved, such a sleep As did that wild Tristram know When, the potion's work being done, Roe could run or doe could leap Under oak and beechen bough, Roe could leap or doe could run; Such a sleep and sound as fell Upon Eurotas' grassy bank When the holy bird, that there Accomplished his predestined will, From the limbs of Leda sank But not from her protecting care.
Yeats songs , opus 39
by James Walter Wilson (b. 1922)
?. Lullaby  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
Text Authorship:
- by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "Lullaby", appears in The New Keepsake, first published 1931
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?. The cat and the moon  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
The cat went here and there And the moon spun round like a top, And the nearest kin of the moon The creeping cat looked up. Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, For wander and wail as he would The pure cold light in the sky Troubled his animal blood. Minnaloushe runs in the grass, Lifting his delicate feet. Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance? When two close kindred meet What better than call a dance? Maybe the moon may learn, Tired of that courtly fashion, A new dance turn. Minnaloushe creeps through the grass From moonlit place to place, The sacred moon overhead Has taken a new phase. Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils Will pass from change to change, And that from round to crescent, From crescent to round they range? Minnaloushe creeps through the grass Alone, important and wise, And lifts to the changing moon His changing eyes.
Text Authorship:
- by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "The cat and the moon", appears in Nine Poems, appears in The Wild Swans at Coole, first published 1918
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "Le chat et la lune", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 310.
?. Sweet dancer  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
The girl goes dancing there On the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth Grass plot of the garden; Escaped from bitter youth, Escaped out of her crowd, Or out of her black cloud. Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer! If strange men come from the house To lead her away, do not say That she is happy being crazy; Lead them gently astray; Let her finish her dance, Let her finish her dance. Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer!
Text Authorship:
- by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "Sweet dancer"
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First published in London Mercury, March 1938