My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a [purple]1 sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. Raise me a dais of [silk and down]2; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and [silver]3 fleur-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love, is come to me.
Flores de mi primavera
Song Cycle by Cyril Bertram Lander
?. A birthday  [sung text not yet checked]
Text Authorship:
- by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894), "A birthday"
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Aldridge, Hall: "halcyon"
2 Parry: "purple and gold"
3 Aldridge: "tiny"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
?. Stanzas for music  [sung text not yet checked]
I speak not -- I trace not -- I breathe not thy name, There is grief in the sound, there were guilt in the fame; But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart. Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace, Were those hours, can their joy or their bitterness cease? We repent -- we abjure -- we will break from our chain, We will part -- we will fly -- to unite it again! Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt! Forgive me adored one -- forsake if thou wilt; But the heart which I bear shall expire undebased, And man shall not break it -- whatever thou may'st. And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee, My soul, in its bitterest blackness shall be; And our days seem as swift -- and our moments more sweet With thee by my side -- than the world at our feet. One sigh of thy sorrow -- one look of thy love Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove; And the heartless may wonder at all we resign, Thy lip shall reply not to them -- but to mine.
Text Authorship:
- by George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788 - 1824), "I speak not -- I trace not -- I breathe not", appears in Hebrew Melodies, no. 26, first published 1815
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Alexis Paulin Pâris) , "Chanson", appears in Mélodies hébraïques, no. 26
?. Song  [sung text not yet checked]
She's somewhere in the sunlight strong, Her tears are in the falling rain, She calls me in the wind's soft song, And with the flowers she comes again. Yon bird is but her messenger, The moon is but her silver car; Yea! sun and moon are sent by her, And every wistful waiting star.
Text Authorship:
- by Richard Le Gallienne (1866 - 1947), "Song", appears in Robert Louis Stevenson and Other Poems, first published 1895
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]?. The Listeners  [sung text not yet checked]
'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest's ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller's head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; 'Is there anybody there?' he said. But no one descended to the Traveller; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller's call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 'Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even Louder, and lifted his head: -- 'Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,' he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.
Text Authorship:
- by Walter De la Mare (1873 - 1956), "The Listeners", appears in The Listeners and Other Poems, first published 1912
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]?. Requiem  [sung text not yet checked]
Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie; Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. Here may the winds about me blow, Here the sea may come and go Here lies peace forevermo' And the heart for aye shall be still. This be the verse you grave for me: "Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill."
Text Authorship:
- by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), "Requiem", appears in Underwoods, first published 1887
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Walter A. Aue) , "Grabschrift", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Requiem", copyright © 2005, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]