Cycle for Declamation

Song Cycle by (Ivy) Priaulx Rainier (1903 - 1986)

1. Wee Cannot Bid the Fruits
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
 ...  We cannot bid the fruits come in May,
nor the leaves to sticke on in December.  ...  There are of
them that will give, that will do justice, that
will pardon, but they have their owne seasons for al
these, and he that knowes not them, shall starve before
that gift come.  ...  Reward is the
season of one man, and importunitie of another;
feare the season of one man, and favour of
another; friendship the season of one man, and
naturall affection of another; and hee that knowes not their
seasons, nor cannot stay them, must lose the
fruits.  ...

Text Authorship:

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Note: this is a prose text. Line-breaks have been added arbitrarily. The meditation is preceded by two epigraphs as follows: 

Oceano tandem emenso,
     ascipienda resurgit
Terra;   vident,   justis,
     medici, jam cocta mederi
     se posse, indiciis.
and 
At last, the Physitians, after a
long and stormie voyage, see
land; They have so good signes
of the concoction of the disease,
as that they may safely proceed
to purge.

Researcher for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. In the Wombe of the Earth
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
 ...  In the wombe of the earth,
wee diminish, and when shee is deliverd of us, our
grave opened for another, wee are not transplanted, but
transported, our dust blowne away with prophane
dust, with every wind.

Text Authorship:

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris.
The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth. 
Morieris.
Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? 
but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? 
Who bends not his ear to any bell, which upon any occasion rings? 
Morieris. 
But who can remove it from that bell which is passing 
a piece of himself out of the world? 
Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris. 
No man is an island, entire of itself; 
no man is an island, entire of itself; 
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. 
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, 
as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor 
of thy friends or of thine own were. 
Morieris. 
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. 
Morieris. 
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 
it tolls for thee. 
Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris.

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 325