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Four songs on poems by Thomas Campion

Song Cycle by Dirk Hol

1. Fire, fire, fire  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Fire, fire, fire, fire,
Loe here I burne in such desire,
That all the treares that I can straine
Out of mine idle empty braine,
Cannot allay my scorching paine.
Come Trent and Humber, and fyre Thames,
Dread Ocean haste with alll thy streames:
And if you cannot quench my fire,
O drowne both me, and my desire.

Fire, fire, fire, fire,
There is no hell to my desire:
See all the Rivers backward flye,
And th'Ocean doth his waves deny,
For feare my heate should drink them dry.
Come heav'nly showres then pouring downe;
Come you that once the world did drowne:
Some then you spar'd, but now save all,
That else must burne, and with me fall.

Text Authorship:

  • by Thomas Campion (1567 - 1620), first published 1617

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this page: Linda Godry

2. Beauty is but a painted hell
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Beauty is but a painted hell :
        Aye me, aye me,
Shee wounds them that admire it,
Shee kils them that desire it.
        Giue her pride but fuell,
        No fire is more cruell.

Pittie from eu'ry heart is fled :
        Aye me, aye me,
Since false desire could borrow
Teares of dissembled sorrow,
        Constant vowes turn truthlesse,
        Loue cruele, Beauty ruthlesse.

Sorrow can laugh, and Fury sing :
        Aye me, aye me,
My rauing griefes discouer
I liu'd too true a louer :
        The first step to madnesse
        Is the excesse of sadnesse.

Text Authorship:

  • by Thomas Campion (1567 - 1620)

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. O sweet delight

Language: English 
— This text is not currently
in the database but will be added
as soon as we obtain it. —

Text Authorship:

  • by Thomas Campion (1567 - 1620)

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4. Now winter nights enlarge  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Now winter nights enlarge
   The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
   Upon the airy towers;
Let now the chimneys blaze
   And cups o'erflow with wine,
Let well-tuned [words]1 amaze
   With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
   Shall wait on honey Love,
While youthful Revels, [Masques]2, and Courtly sights,
   Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
   With lover's long discourse;
Much speech hath some defense,
   Though beauty no remorse.
all do not all things well:
   Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted Riddles tell,
   Some Poems smoothly read,
The Summer hath his joys,
   And winter his delights;
Though Love and all his pleasures are but toys,
   They shorten tedious [nights]3.

Text Authorship:

  • by Thomas Campion (1567 - 1620)

See other settings of this text.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Holmes: "works"
2 Holmes: "Masks"
3 P. Moore: "night"

Researcher for this page: Brian Holmes
Total word count: 326
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