Now let no charitable hope Confuse my mind with images Of eagle and of antelope: I am in nature none of these. I was, being human, born alone; I am, being woman, hard beset; I live by squeezing from a stone The little nourishment I get. In masks outrageous and austere The years go by in single file; But none has merited my fear, And none has quite escaped my smile.
Women's Voices
Song Cycle by Ned Rorem (1923 - 2022)
1. Now let no charitable hope  [sung text checked 1 time]
Authorship:
- by Elinor Wylie (1885 - 1928), "Let no charitable hope", appears in Black Armour: A Book of Poems, first published 1923
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]2. A birthday  [sung text checked 1 time]
My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a [purple]1 sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. Raise me a dais of [silk and down]2; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and [silver]3 fleur-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love, is come to me.
Authorship:
- by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894), "A birthday"
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Aldridge, Hall: "halcyon"
2 Parry: "purple and gold"
3 Aldridge: "tiny"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
3. To my dear and loving husband  [sung text checked 1 time]
If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee. If ever wife [was]1 happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can. I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, Or all the riches that the East doth hold. My love is such that rivers cannot quench, Nor [ought]2 but love from thee give recompense. Thy love is such I can no way repay; The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. Then while we live, in love let's so [persever]3, That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Authorship:
- by Anne (Dudley) Bradstreet (1612? - 1672), "To my dear and loving husband"
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View original text (without footnotes)Confirmed with The Complete Works of Anne Bradstreet, 1981.
1 Wilkinson: "were"2 Wilkinson: "aught"
3 Rorem: "persevere"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
4. To the ladies  [sung text not yet checked]
Wife and servant are the same, But only differ in the name : For when that fatal knot is ty'd, Which nothing, nothing can divide : When she the word obey has said, And man by law supreme has made, Then all that's kind is laid aside, And nothing left but state and pride : Fierce as an eastern prince he grows, And all his innate rigour shows : Then but to look, to laugh, or speak, Will the nuptial contract break. Like mutes, she signs alone must make, And never any freedom take : But still be govern'd by a nod, And fear her husband as a God : Him still must serve, him still obey, And nothing act, and nothing say, But what her haughty lord thinks fit, Who with the power, has all the wit. Then shun, oh ! shun that wretched state, And all the fawning flatt'rers hate : Value yourselves, and men despise : You must be proud, if you'll be wise.
Authorship:
- by Mary Lee, Lady Chudleigh (1656 - 1710), "To the ladies"
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]5. If ever hapless woman had a cause  [sung text not yet checked]
If ever hapless woman had a cause To breath her plaintes into the open ayre, And never suffer inward griefe to pause Or seeke her sorrow shaken soules repayre Then I for I have lost my onelie brother Whose like this age can scarsly yeeld another. Come therefore mournefull Muses and lament, Forsake all wanton pleasing motions, Bedew your cheekes, stil shal my teares be spent: Yet still encreast with inundations, For must I weepe, since I have lost my brother, Whose like this age can scarsly yeeld another. The cruell hand of murther cloyde with bloud Lewdly deprivde him of his mortal life: Woe the death attended blades that stoode, In opposition gainst him in the strife, Wherein he fell, and where I lost a brother, Whose like this age can scarsly yeeld another. Then unto griefe let me a Temple make, And mourning dayly, enter sorrowes portes, Knocke on my breast, sweete brother for thy sake, Nature and love will both be my consorts, And helpe me aye to wayle my onely brother, Whose like this age can scarsly yeeld another.
Authorship:
- by Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, née Sidney (1561 - 1621)
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Researcher for this page: Linda Godry6. We never said farewell  [sung text checked 1 time]
We never said farewell, nor even looked Our last upon each other, for no sign Was made when we the linkèd chain unhooked And broke the level line. And here we dwell together, side by side, Our places fixed for life upon the chart. Two islands that the roaring seas divide Are not more far apart.
Authorship:
- by Mary Coleridge (1861 - 1907), "We never said farewell", appears in Poems, no. 173, first published 1907
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]7. The stranger
Looking as I've looked before, straight down the heart . . . . . . . . . .— The rest of this text is not
currently in the database but will be
added as soon as we obtain it. —
Authorship:
- by Adrienne Rich (1929 - 2012), "The stranger", appears in Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-2, first published 1973, copyright ©
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This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.8. What inn is this  [sung text checked 1 time]
What inn is this Where for the night Peculiar traveller comes? Who is the landlord? Where the maids? Behold, what curious rooms! No ruddy fires on the hearth, No brimming tankards flow. Necromancer, landlord, Who are these below?
Authorship:
- by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems by Emily Dickinson, first published 1891
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , no title, copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
9. Defiled is my name  [sung text checked 1 time]
Defiled is my name full sore Through cruel spite and false report, That I may say for evermore, Farewell, my joy! adieu comfort! For wrongfully ye judge of me Unto my fame a mortal wound, Say what ye list, it will not be, Ye seek for that can not be found
Authorship:
- sometimes misattributed to Anne Boleyn, Queen of England (1507? - 1536)
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]10. Electrocution  [sung text not yet checked]
He shudders — feeling on the shaven spot The probing wind, that stabs him to a thought Of storm-drenched fields in a white foam of light, And roads of his hill-town that leap to sight Like threads of tortured silver ... while the guards — Monstrous deft dolls that move as on a string, In wonted haste to finish with this thing, Turn faces blanker than asphalted yards. They heard the shriek that tore out of its sheath But as a feeble moan ... yet dared not breathe, Who stared there at him, arching — like a tree When the winds wrench it and the earth holds tight — Whose soul, expanding in white agony, Had fused in flaming circuit with the night.
Authorship:
- by Lola Ridge (1873 - 1941), "Electrocution"
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]11. Smile, Death  [sung text not yet checked]
Smile, Death, see I smile as I come to you Straight from the road and the moor that I leave behind, Nothing on earth to me was like this wind-blown space, Nothing was like the road, but at the end there was a vision or a face And the eyes were not always kind. Smile, death, as you fasten the blades to my feet for me, On, on let us skate past the sleeping willows dusted with snow ; Fast, fast down the frozen stream, with the moor and the road and the vision behind, (Show me your face, why the eyes are kind !) And we will not speak of life or believe in it or remember it as we go.
Authorship:
- by Charlotte Mew (1869 - 1928), "Smile, Death"
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]