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Dover Beach and Other Songs

by Joseph Kaufer (1909 - 1990)

1. Music when soft voices die
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Music, when soft voices die,	
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "To ----", appears in Posthumous Poems, first published 1824

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Sloky", Prague, J. Otto, first published 1901
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Martin Stock) , "Musik, wenn leise Stimmen ersterben ...", copyright © 2002, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

2. Dover Beach
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
The sea is calm to-night, 
The tide is full, the moon lies fair 
Upon the straights; -- on the French coast the light 
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand, 
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring 
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago 
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought 
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we 
Find also in the sound a thought, 
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith 
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore 
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath 
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, 
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, 
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Text Authorship:

  • by Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888), "Dover Beach", appears in New Poems, first published 1867

See other settings of this text.

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , "Der Strand von Dover", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • LIT Lithuanian (Lietuvių kalba) (Giedrius Prunskus) , copyright © 2022, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Peter Duyster

3. Take o take those lips away
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Take, o take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again;
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, sealed in vain.

 ... 

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author
  • sometimes misattributed to William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (L. A. J. Burgersdijk)
  • FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Paavo Cajander)
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Sarah L. Weller) , "Nimm, so nimm doch Deine Lippen fort", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • POL Polish (Polski) (Jan Kasprowicz) , "Śpiew Pacholęcia", Warsaw, first published 1907

Note: quoted by John Fletcher, in Bloody Brother, 1639 and by William Shakespeare, in Measure for Measure, Act IV, scene 1, c1604 (just one stanza)
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Beau soir
 (Sung text)

Language: French (Français) 
Lorsque au soleil couchant les rivières sont roses,
Et qu'un tiède frisson court sur les champs de blé,
Un conseil d'être heureux semble sortir des choses
  Et monter vers le cœur troublé ;

Un conseil de goûter le charme d'être au monde,
Cependant qu'on est jeune et que le soir est beau,
Car nous nous en allons comme s'en va cette onde :
  Elle à la mer, -- nous au tombeau !

Text Authorship:

  • by Paul Bourget (1852 - 1935), "Beau soir", written 1881, appears in Les Aveux, in Dilettantisme, in Souvenirs du Nord, no. 7, Paris, Éd. Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1882

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Krásný večer", first published 1893
  • ENG English (Emily Ezust) , "Fair evening", copyright © 2016
  • ENG English (Henry Grafton Chapman)
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Michael Rapke) , "Schönen Abend", copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Enrico Magnani) , "Sera incantevole", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Elisa Rapado) , "Bella tarde", copyright © 2020, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. Not upon you alone
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
 ... 

7
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
    The dark threw patches down upon me also;
The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious;
My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
     ... 

Nor is it you alone who knows what it is to be evil;
I am he who knew what it was to be evil;
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd,
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
    Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant;
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting.
Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest...

 ... 

Text Authorship:

  • by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

See other settings of this text.

Spelling changes used by Kaufer: meagre -> meager

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

6. For whom the bell tolls
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
 ... 

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 friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Text Authorship:

  • by John Donne (1572 - 1631), "Meditation XVII", written 1623, appears in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes, first published 1624

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

7. Out of my soul's great sadness
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Out of my soul's great sadness
My little songs come winging;
Like wee, feathered birds a-singing
They fly to her heart in gladness.

They found her, and round her hover'd,
And now they're come back, and they scold me,
And yet not a songlet has told me
What they in her heart discovered.

Text Authorship:

  • by Frederic Field Bullard

Based on:

  • a text in German (Deutsch) by Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856), no title, appears in Buch der Lieder, in Lyrisches Intermezzo, no. 36
    • Go to the text page.

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this page: Laura Prichard [Guest Editor]

8. Tears, idle tears
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Tennyson, Lord (1809 - 1892), appears in The Princess, first published 1847

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

9. To Helen  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! In yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!

Text Authorship:

  • by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849), "To Helen", written 1831

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Stéphane Mallarmé) , "Stances à Hélène"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

10. Crossing the Bar
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Sunset and evening star,
    And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
    When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
    Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
    Turns again home!

 ... 

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Tennyson, Lord (1809 - 1892), "Crossing the Bar", appears in Demeter and Other Poems, first published 1889

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CHI Chinese (中文) (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

11. The snow storm
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
To those who see, and seeing understand
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

  • by William Daniels Kennedy (b. 1948), 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.

12. All things living soon must perish
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
All things living soon shall perish,
All things, all things that men cherish,
Time is fleeting and the splendid sun 
beholdeth thought and action, sorrow, pleasure quickly ended.
Fled like shadows in a second,
Like a vapor swept away.
We were also men like you,
Gay and mournful, false and true,
Now we are but lifeless clay,
And in earth our forms must vanish.
All things living soon shall perish,
All things, all things that men cherish.

Text Authorship:

  • by Nathan Haskell Dole (1852 - 1935) [an adaptation]

Based on:

  • a text in Italian (Italiano) by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 - 1564), appears in Rime, no. 21
    • Go to the text page.

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this page: Laura Prichard [Guest Editor]

13. How do I love thee
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Text Authorship:

  • by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), no title, appears in Poems, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 43, first published 1847-50

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CHI Chinese (中文) (M.W. Wang) , "我有多麽愛你?", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

See also Karl Shapiro's parody How do I love you?
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

14. An den Schlaf
 (Sung text)

Language: German (Deutsch) 
Schlaf! süßer Schlaf! obwohl dem Tod wie du nichts gleicht,
auf diesem Lager doch willkommen heiß' ich dich!
Denn ohne Leben so, wie lieblich lebt es sich!
So weit vom Sterben, ach, wie stirbt es sich so leicht!

Text Authorship:

  • by Eduard Mörike (1804 - 1875), "An den Schlaf"

Based on:

  • a text in Latin by Heinrich Meibom (1638 - 1700), "Somne levis"
    • Go to the text page.

See other settings of this text.

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

  • ENG English (Emily Ezust) , "To Sleep", copyright ©
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Au sommeil", copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Stéphane Goldet) (Pierre de Rosamel) , "Au sommeil", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Sonno mio dolce!", copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

14. To sleep
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Sleep! Blessed Sleep! the foretaste of eternity
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

  • Singable translation by Julia von Bose , "To sleep", copyright © 1951

Based on:

  • a text in German (Deutsch) by Eduard Mörike (1804 - 1875), "An den Schlaf"
    • Go to the text page.

Based on:

  • a text in Latin by Heinrich Meibom (1638 - 1700), "Somne levis"
    • Go to the text page.

Go to the general single-text view

This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.
Total word count: 1335
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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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