"Dearest, when I am dead, Make one last song for me: Sing what I would have said -- Righting life's wrong for me. "Tell them how, early and late, Glad ran the days with me, Seeing how goodly and great, Love, were your ways with me."
A Song of Life
Song Cycle by Charles Albert Lidgey (d. 1924)
?. Dearest, when I am dead  [sung text not yet checked]
Authorship:
- by William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903), no title, appears in Hawthorn and Lavender with Other Verses, in Hawthorn and Lavender, no. 40, first published 1901
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]?. Gray hills  [sung text not yet checked]
Gray hills, gray skies, gray lights, And still, gray sea -- O fond, O fair, The Mays that were, When the wild days and wilder nights Made it like heaven to be! Gray head, gray heart, gray dreams -- O, breath by breath, Night-tide and day Lapse gentle and gray, As to a murmur of tired streams, Into the haze of death.
Authorship:
- by William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903), no title, appears in Hawthorn and Lavender with Other Verses, in Hawthorn and Lavender, no. 48, first published 1901
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]?. All in a garden green  [sung text not yet checked]
I talked one midnight with the jolly ghost Of a gray ancestor, Tom Heywood hight; And, "Here's," says he, his old heart liquor-lifted -- "Here's how we did when Gloriana shone:" All in a garden green Thrushes were singing; Red rose and white between, Lilies were springing; It was the merry May; Yet sang my Lady: -- "Nay, Sweet, now nay, now nay! I am not ready." Then to a pleasant shade I did invite her: All things a concert made, For to delight her; Under, the grass was gay; Yet sang my Lady: -- "Nay, Sweet, now nay, now nay! I am not ready."
Authorship:
- by William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903), no title, appears in Hawthorn and Lavender with Other Verses, in Hawthorn and Lavender, no. 13, first published 1901
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]?. The wind on the wold  [sung text not yet checked]
The wind on the wold, With sea-scents and sea-dreams attended, Is wine! The air is as gold In elixir -- it takes so the splendid Sunshine! O, the larks in the blue! How the song of them glitters, and glances, And gleams! The old music sounds new -- And it's O, the wild Spring, and his chances And dreams! There's a lift in the blood -- O, this gracious, and thirsting, and aching Unrest! All life's at the bud, And my heart, full of April, is breaking My breast.
Authorship:
- by William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903), no title, appears in Hawthorn and Lavender with Other Verses, in Hawthorn and Lavender, no. 9, first published 1901
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]?. Sing to me  [sung text not yet checked]
Sing to me, sing, and sing again, My glad, great-throated nightingale: Sing, as the good sun through the rain -- Sing, as the home-wind in the sail! Sing to me life, and toil, and time, O bugle of dawn, O flute of rest! Sing, and once more, as in the prime, There shall be naught but seems the best. And sing me at the last of love: Sing that old magic of the May, That makes the great world laugh and move As lightly as our dream to-day!
Authorship:
- by William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903), no title, appears in Hawthorn and Lavender with Other Verses, in Hawthorn and Lavender, no. 35, first published 1901
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]?. A sigh sent wrong  [sung text not yet checked]
A sigh sent wrong, A kiss that goes astray, A sorrow the years endlong -- So they say. So let it be -- Come the sorrow, the kiss, the sigh! They are life, dear life, all three, And we die.
Authorship:
- by William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903), "Finale", appears in Hawthorn and Lavender with Other Verses, in Hawthorn and Lavender, first published 1901
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]