Love's waning seasons

Song Cycle by Zane Randall Stroope (b. 1953)

1. Autumn
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
There is a wind where the rose was;
Cold rain where sweet grass was;
And clouds like sheep
Stream o'er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was. 

Nought gold where your hair was;
Nought warm where your hand was;
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where your face was. 

Sad winds where your voice was;
Tears, tears where my heart was;
And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Tardor", copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • CHI Chinese (中文) (Dr Huaixing Wang) , "秋天", copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Automne", copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Herbst", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. I so liked spring
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
I so liked Spring last year because you were here;
The thrushes too last year
Because it was those you so liked to hear;
I so liked you.

This year’s a different thing,
I’ll not think of you.
But I’ll like Spring
Because it’s simply Spring
As the thrushes do.

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Researcher for this page: John Glenn Paton [Guest Editor]

3. A winter night
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
My window-pane is starred with frost,
The world is bitter cold to-night,
The moon is cruel, and the wind
Is like a two-edged sword to smite.

 ... 

My room is like a bit of June,
Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,
But somewhere, like a homeless child,
My heart is crying in the cold.

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?  (Sonnet 18)
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely [and] more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st.
Tho’ I no longer breathe thy heav’nly scent,
Still thy fair memory remains eloquent.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Go, go then, fair flow’r,
Go spread thy petals,
Eternal summer, eternal memory shall remain.

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Researcher for this page: John Glenn Paton [Guest Editor]

5. Sigh no more, ladies
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea and one on shore;
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no more,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

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Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
Total word count: 375