Six Songs

Song Cycle by Madeleine Dring (1923 - 1977)

. Love is a sickness
 (Sung text for setting by M. Dring)
 Matches original text

Language: English 
Love is a sickness full of woes,
  All remedies refusing;
A plant that with most cutting grows,
  Most barren with best using,
      Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
  If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries --
      Heigh ho!

Love is a torment of the mind,
  A tempest everlasting;
And Jove hath made it of a kind
  Not well, nor full, nor fasting.
      Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
  If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries --
      Heigh ho!

Composition:

    Set to music by Madeleine Dring (1923 - 1977), "Love is a sickness" [ voice and piano ], from Six Songs, no. , confirmed with a score

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

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

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

. Echoes

Language: English 
How sweet the answer Echo makes
  To Music at night,
When, rous'd by lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away, o'er lawns and lakes,
  Goes answering light!

Yet Love hath echoes truer far,
  And far more sweet,
Than e'er beneath the moonlight's star,
Of horn, or lute, or soft guitar,
  The songs repeat.

'Tis when the sigh, in youth sincere,
  And only then, --
The sigh that's breath'd for one to hear,
Is by that one, that only dear,
  Breath'd back again.

Text Authorship:

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

Set by Madeleine Dring (1923 - 1977), published 1999 [ voice and piano ]
Researcher for this page: Virginia Knight

. The Enchantment

Language: English 
I did but look and love awhile,
  ’Twas but for one half-hour;
Then to resist I had no will,
  And now I have no power.

To sigh and wish is all my ease;
  Sighs which do heat impart
Enough to melt the coldest ice,
  Yet cannot warm your heart.

O would your pity give my heart
  One corner of your breast,
’Twould learn of yours the winning art,
  And quickly steal the rest.

Text Authorship:

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

Set by Madeleine Dring (1923 - 1977) [ voice and piano ]
Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

1. My true love hath my heart
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
My true Love hath my heart and I have his.
By just exchange, one for the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a bargain better driven.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
I cherish his because in me it bides.
His heart his wound received from my sight;
My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;
For as from me on him his hurt did light,
So still methought in me his hurt did smart:
Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss:
My true Love hath my heart, and I have his.

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

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

Parodied in Archibald Stodart-Walker's My true friend hath my hat.

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Ted Perry
Total word count: 368