Blow, blow thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh ho! the holly! This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky, That does not bite so nigh As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remember'd not. Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh ho! the holly! This life is most jolly.
The Four Seasons
Song Cycle by Derek Holman (b. 1931)
1. Blow, blow thou winter wind
Text Authorship:
- by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CHI Chinese (中文) [singable] (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Paavo Cajander)
- FRE French (Français) (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot)
- GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (David Paley) , "Stürm, stürm du Winterwind!", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Soffia, soffia vento invernale", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Paolo Montanari) , "Soffia, soffia, vento d'inverno", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Note: In Steele's score, "Heigh" is spelled "Hey"
Researcher for this page: Ted Perry2. Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. "Now they are all on their knees," An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then. So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, "Come; see the oxen kneel, In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know," I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so.
Text Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "The Oxen", first published 1915
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First published in The Times, December 1915
Researcher for this page: Ted Perry3. The hounds of spring
When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
And the brown bright nightingale amorous
Is half assuaged for Itylus,
For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces.
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.
...
For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remember'd is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
Text Authorship:
- by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837 - 1909), no title, appears in Atalanta in Calydon, first published 1865
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- POL Polish (Polski) (Maria Konopnicka) , "Gdy gończe wiosny", Warsaw, Gebethner i Wolff, first published 1904
4. Fair daffodils
Fair daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early-rising sun Has not attain'd his noon. Stay, stay Until the hasting day Has run But to the evensong, And, having pray'd together, we Will go with you along. We have short time to stay, as you, We have as short a spring; As quick a growth to meet decay, As you, or anything. We die, As your hours do, and dry Away, Like to the summer's rain, Or as the pearls of morning's dew, Ne'er to be found again.
Text Authorship:
- by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674), "To daffodils"
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- CHI Chinese (中文) [singable] (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Pauline Kroger) , "Aan de narcissen", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Erkki Pullinen) , "Narsisseille", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , "An Narzissen", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
5. Summer thirst
The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, And drinks and gapes for drink again; The plants suck in the earth, and are With constant drinking fresh and fair; The sea itself (which one would think Should have but little need of drink) Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up, So fill'd that they o'erflow the cup. The busy Sun (and one would guess By 's drunken fiery face no less) Drinks up the sea, and when he 's done, The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun: They drink and dance by their own light They drink and revel all the night: Nothing in Nature 's sober found, But an eternal health goes round. Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high, Fill all the glasses there—for why Should every creature drink but I? Why, man of morals, tell me why?
Text Authorship:
- by Abraham Cowley (1618 - 1667)
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]6. August
There were four apples on the bough, Half gold half red, that one might know The blood was ripe inside the core; The colour of the leaves was more Like stems of yellow corn that grow Through all the gold June meadow’s floor. The warm smell of the fruit was good To feed on, and the split green wood, With all its bearded lips and stains Of mosses in the cloven veins, Most pleasant, if one lay or stood In sunshine or in happy rains. There were four apples on the tree, Red stained through gold, that all might see The sun went warm from core to rind; The green leaves made the summer blind In that soft place they kept for me With golden apples shut behind.
Text Authorship:
- by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837 - 1909)
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]7. Towered Camelot
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
...
Text Authorship:
- by Alfred Tennyson, Lord (1809 - 1892), no title, appears in The Lady of Shalott, no. 1
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
8. The West Wind
I O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear! ... The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. V Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies ...
Text Authorship:
- by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Ode to the West Wind"
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- HUN Hungarian (Magyar) (Árpád Tóth) , "Óda a nyugati Szélhez"