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To Music

Song Cycle by Leslie R. Bassett (b. 1923)

1. Slow, slow fresh fount  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
 Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears:
    [Yet slower, yet; O faintly,]1 gentle springs:
 List to the heavy part the music bears,
    Woe weeps out her [division]2 when she sings.
     Droop herbs and flowers,
     Fall grief in showers,
     Our [beauties are]3 not ours;
      [O, I could still,]4
 Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
     [Drop, drop, drop, drop,]5
    Since [nature's]6 pride is, now, a withered daffodil.

Text Authorship:

  • by Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637), from Cynthia's Revels, Act I Scene 2.

See other settings of this text.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Horsley: "O slower yet, O fainter"
2 Horsley: "division"
3 Horsley: "beauty is"
4 Quilter: "Or I could still"; Horsley: "O could I still"
5 Horsley: "Fall down, fall down."
6 Horsley: "summer's"

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

2. To music  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Charm me asleep, and melt me so
With thy delicious numbers,
That, being ravish'd, hence I go
Away in easy slumbers.
Ease my sick head,
And make my bed,
Thou power that canst sever
From me this ill,
And quickly still,
Though thou not kill
My fever.

Thou sweetly canst convert the same
From a consuming fire
Into a gentle licking flame,
And make it thus expire.
Then make me weep
My pains asleep;
And give me such reposes
That I, poor I,
May think thereby
I live and die
'Mongst roses.

Fall on me like [a]1 silent dew,
Or like those maiden showers
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
A baptism o'er the flowers
Melt, melt my [pains]2
With thy soft strains;
That, having ease me given,
With full delight
I leave this light,
And take my flight
[For]3 Heaven.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674), "To Music, to becalm his fever"

See other settings of this text.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Ewazen, Hindemith: "the"
2 Ewazen: "pain"
3 Gideon, Hindemith: "To"

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Garrett Medlock [Guest Editor]

3. Great art thou  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Great art thou, O music
and with thee there is no competitor...
Thou art like pure love...
Therefore thou art like Heaven 
and Heaven is like Thee.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Billings (1746 - 1800)

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 249
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