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Shelley Songs, Cycle of Ten Songs

Song Cycle by Creighton Allen (1900 - 1969)

1. The dawn  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Voice of unseen spirits
The pale stars are gone!
   For the sun, their swift shepherd,
   To their folds them compelling,
   In the depths of the dawn,
Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee
   Beyond his blue dwelling,
   As fawns flee the leopard.
      But where are ye?

A Train of dark Forms and Shadows passes by confusedly, singing.
    Here, oh, here!
    We bear the bier
Of the father of many a cancelled year!
    Spectres we
    Of the dead Hours be;
We bear Time to his tomb in eternity.

    Strew, oh, strew
    Hair, not yew!
Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew!
    Be the faded flowers
    Of Death's bare bowers
Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours!

    Haste, oh, haste!
    As shades are chased,
Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste,
    We melt away,
    Like dissolving spray,
From the children of a diviner day,
    With the lullaby
    Of winds that die
On the bosom of their own harmony!

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), no title, appears in Prometheus Unbound, Act 4, Scene 1

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. Winter song  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
A widow bird sate mourning for her love
  Upon a wintry bough,
The frozen wind crept on above;
  The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
  No [flower]1 upon the ground
And little motion in the air,
  Except the mill-wheel's sound.

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), no title, appears in Charles the First

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Píseň"
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Un passero solitario il suo amore lamenta", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
Some settings use the modernized spelling "sat" instead of "sate"
1 Treharne: "flowers".

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. To a maiden  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden;
  Thou needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden
  Ever to burden thine.
                           
I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion;
  Thou needest not fear mine;
Innocent is the heart's devotion
  With which I worship thine.

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), no title, first published 1882

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Sloky (Shelley 2)", Prague, J. Otto, first published 1901

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Autumn  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
If I walk in Autumn's even
While the dead leaves pass,
If I look on Spring's soft heaven, --
Something is not there which was
Winter's wondrous frost and snow, 
Summer's clouds, where are they now?

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Stanza", first published 1870

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Verše", Prague, J. Otto, first published 1901

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. The world's wanderers  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Tell me, [thou Star]1, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,
In what cavern of the night 
   Will thy pinions close now?

Tell me, Moon, thou pale and grey
Pilgrim, of Heav'ns homeless way,
In what depth of night or day,
   Seekest thou repose now?

Weary wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest
Hast thou still some secret nest
   On the tree or billow?

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "The world's wanderers", first published 1824

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CHI Chinese (中文) [singable] (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Poutníci světa"

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Ives: "Star"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

6. Mutability  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
[But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.]1

[Whilst]2 skies are blue and bright, 
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream [thou]3 -- and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Mutability", first published 1824

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Změna", Prague, J. Otto, first published 1901

View original text (without footnotes)
1 omitted by D. E. Thomas
2 Stöhr: "While"
3 Stöhr: "then"

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Johann Winkler

7. A dirge  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Rough wind that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Knells all [the]1 night long;
Sad storm whose tears are vain,
Bare woods, whose branches strain,
Deep caves and dreary main, --
Wail, for the world's wrong!

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "A Dirge", written 1822, first published 1824

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
  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Nářek", Prague, J. Otto, first published 1901
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)

Published by Mrs. Shelley in Posthumous Poems, 1824.

1 omitted by Ives.

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

8. Remembrance  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Swifter far than summers flight -
Swifter far than youth's delight -
Swifter far than happy night,
Art thou come and gone -
As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.

The swallow summer comes again -
The owlet night resumes her reign -
But the wild-swan youth is fain
To fly with thee, false as thou. -
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow
Sunny leaves from any bough.

Lilies for a bridal bed -
Roses for a matron's head -
Violets for a maiden dead - 
Pansies let my flowers be :
On the living grave I bear
Scatter them without a tear -
Let no friend, however dear, 
Waste one hope, one fear for me.

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Remembrance"

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Upomínka", Prague, J. Otto, first published 1901
  • HUN Hungarian (Magyar) (Dezső Kosztolányi) , "Síró dalocska"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

9. Evening  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
When soft winds and sunny skies
With the green earth harmonize,
And the young and dewy dawn,
Bold as an unhunted fawn,
Up the windless heaven is gone, --
Laugh--for ambushed in the day, --
Clouds and whirlwinds watch their prey.

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Fragment: "When soft winds and sunny skies"", first published 1839

See other settings of this text.

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

  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Quando venti leggeri e cieli luminosi", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

10. To the moon  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth, --
And ever changing, like a joyless eye 
That finds no object worth its constancy?

Thou chosen sister of the Spirit,
That grazes on thee till in thee it pities...

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "To the Moon", first published 1824

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Měsíci", Prague, J. Otto, first published 1901

Note: this is a fragment; the first two lines of a second stanza were published by W. M. Rossetti in 1870

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 725
Gentle Reminder

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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