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Songs of Sunset

Song Cycle by Frederick Delius (1862 - 1934)

1.
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
A song of the setting sun!
The sky in the west is red,
And the day is all but done:
While yonder up overhead,
All too soon,
There rises, so cold, the cynic moon.

A song of a winter day!
The wind of the north doth blow,
From a sky that's chill and gray,
On fields where no crops now grow,
Fields long shorn
Of bearded barley and golden corn.

A song of a faded flower!
'Twas plucked in the tender bud,
And fair and fresh for an hour,
In a lady's hair it stood.
Now, ah! now,
Faded it lies in the dust and low.

Text Authorship:

  • by Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867 - 1900), "Moritura", from London Society, first published 1887

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this page: Ahmed E. Ismail

2.
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Cease smiling, Dear! a little while be sad,
Here in the silence, under the wan moon.
Sweet are thine eyes, but how can I be glad,
Knowing they change so soon?

O could this moment be perpetuate!
Must we grow old, and leaden-eyed and gray
And taste no more the wild and passionate
Love sorrows of to-day?

O red pomegranate of thy perfect mouth!
My lips' life-fruitage might I taste and die,
Here to thy garden, where the scented south
Wind chastens agony;

Reap death from thy live lips in one long kiss,
And look my last into thine eyes and rest:
What sweets had life to me sweeter than this
Swift dying on thy breast?

Or, if that may not be, for Love's sake, Dear!
Keep silence still, and dream that we shall lie.
Red mouth to mouth, entwined, and always hear
The south wind's melody,

Here in thy garden, through the sighing boughs,
Beyond the reach of time and chance and change,
And bitter life and death, and broken vows,
That sadden and estrange.

Text Authorship:

  • by Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867 - 1900), no title, from Verses, first published 1896

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this page: Ahmed E. Ismail

3.
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Pale amber sunlight falls across
 The reddening October trees,
 That hardly sway before a breeze
As soft as summer: summer's loss
 Seems little, dear! on days like these!

Let misty autumn be our part!
 The twilight of the year is sweet:
 Where shadow and the darkness meet
Our love, a twilight of the heart
 Eludes a little time's deceit.

Are we not better and at home
 In dreamful Autumn, we who deem
 No harvest joy is worth a dream?
A little while and night shall come,
 A little while, then, let us dream.

 ... 

Text Authorship:

  • by Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867 - 1900), "Autumnal", appears in Verses, London, Leonard Smithers, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Research team for this page: Ahmed E. Ismail , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

4. O Mors!
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Exceeding sorrow
  Consumeth my sad heart!
Because to-morrow
  We must depart,
Now is exceeding sorrow
  All my part!

Give over playing,
  Cast thy viol away:
Merely laying
  Thine head my way:
Prithee, give over playing,
  Grave or gay.

Be no word spoken;
  Weep nothing: let a pale
Silence, unbroken
  Silence prevail!
Prithee, be no word spoken,
  Lest I fail!

Forget tomorrow!
  Weep nothing: only lay
In silent sorrow
  Thine head my way!
Let us forget to-morrow
  This one day!

Text Authorship:

  • by Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867 - 1900), "O Mors! Quam amara est memoria tua homini pacem habenti in substantiis suis", appears in Book of the Rhymers' Club, first published 1892

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Researcher for this page: Ahmed E. Ismail

5. Exile
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
By the sad waters of separation
  Where we have wandered by divers ways,
I have but the shadow and imitation
  Of the old, memorial days.

In music I have no consolation,
  No roses are pale enough for me;
The sound of the waters of separation
  Surpasseth roses and melody.

By the sad waters of separation
  Dimly I hear from an hidden place
The sigh of mine ancient adoration:
  Hardly can I remember your face.

If you be dead, no proclamation
  Sprang to me over the waste, gray sea:
Living, the waters of separation
  Sever for ever your soul from me.

No man knoweth our desolation;
  Memory pales of the old delight;
While the sad waters of separation
  Bear us on to the ultimate night.

Text Authorship:

  • by Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867 - 1900), "Exile", appears in Verses, London, Leonard Smithers, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Research team for this page: Ahmed E. Ismail , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

6. In spring  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
See how the trees and the osiers lithe
Are green bedecked and the woods are blithe. 
The meadows have donned their cape of flowers, 
The air is soft with the sweet May showers, 
And the birds make melody: 
But the spring of the soul, the spring of the soul 
Cometh no more for you or for me.

The lazy hum of the busy bees 
Murmureth through the almond trees; 
The jonquil flaunteth a gay, blonde head, 
The primrose peeps from a mossy bed, 
And the violets scent the lane. 
But the flowers of the soul, the flowers of the soul 
For you and for me bloom never again.

Text Authorship:

  • by Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867 - 1900), "In Spring", appears in Decorations, first published 1899

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this page: David K. Smythe

7.
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
I was not sorrowful, I could not weep,
And all my memories were put to sleep.

I watched the river grow more white and strange,
All day till evening I watched it change.

All day till evening I watched the rain
Beat wearily upon the window pane.

I was not sorrowful, but only tired
Of everything that ever I desired.

Her lips, her eyes, all day became to me
The shadow of a shadow utterly.

All day mine hunger for her heart became
Oblivion, until the evening came,

And left me sorrowful, inclined to weep,
With all my memories that could not sleep.

Text Authorship:

  • by Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867 - 1900), "Spleen", appears in Verses, London, Leonard Smithers, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

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

  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit) , copyright © 2022, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Ted Perry , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

8. Vitae summa
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
  Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
  We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
  Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
  Within a dream.

Text Authorship:

  • by Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867 - 1900), "Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam", appears in Verses, London, Leonard Smithers, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Research team for this page: David K. Smythe , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]
Total word count: 844
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This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

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