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Two choruses on Jacobean poems für Chor a cappella

Song Cycle by Ernst Křenek (1900 - 1991)

1. This life, which seems so fair  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
This Life, which seems so fair,
Is like a bubble blown up in the air
By sporting children's breath,
Who chase it everywhere
And strive who can most motion it bequeath.
And though it sometimes seem of its own might
Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there,
And firm to hover in that empty height,
That only is because it is so light.
But in that pomp it doth not long appear;
For when 'tis most admired, in a thought,
Because it erst was nought, it turns to nought. 

Text Authorship:

  • by William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585 - 1649)

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Richard Flatter) , "Die Seifenblase", appears in Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten, first published 1936

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. Even such is time  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Even such is Time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with [age]1 and dust;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;
[And from which earth, and grave, and dust]2,
[The Lord]3 shall raise me up, I trust.

Text Authorship:

  • by Walter Raleigh, Sir (1552? - 1618), "Epitaph", found in his Bible in the Gate House at Westminster.

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Richard Flatter) , "Der Abschluß", appears in Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten, first published 1936

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Gurney: "earth"
2 Gurney: "But from this earth, this grave, this dust"
3 Gurney: "My God"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 157
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