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Wind Flowers

Song Cycle by Arthur Somervell, Sir (1863 - 1937)

1. Twist me a crown of wind‑flowers  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Twist me a crown of wind-flowers;
  That I may fly away
To hear the singers at their song,
  And players at their play.

Put on your crown of wind-flowers:
  But whither would you go?
Beyond the surging of the sea
  And the storms that blow.

Alas! your crown of wind-flowers
  Can never make you fly:
I twist them in a crown to-day,
  And to-night they die. 

Text Authorship:

  • by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894), no title, appears in Sing-song: a nursery rhyme book, first published 1872

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. High over the Breakers

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

Text Authorship:

  • by Sydney Thompson Dobell (1824 - 1874)

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3. The wind has such a rainy sound  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
The wind has such a rainy sound
  Moaning through the town,
The sea has such a windy sound, --
  Will the ships go down?

The apples in the orchard
  Tumble from their tree. --
Oh will the ships go down, go down,
  In the windy sea? 

Text Authorship:

  • by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894), no title, appears in Sing-song: a nursery rhyme book, first published 1872

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Hope is like a harebell  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Hope is like a harebell trembling from its birth,
Love is like a rose the joy of all the earth;
Faith is like a lily lifted high and white,
Love is like a lovely rose the world's delight;
Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth,
But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.

Text Authorship:

  • by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894), no title, appears in Sing-song: a nursery rhyme book, first published 1872

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. Two doves on the self‑same branch  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Two doves upon the selfsame branch,
  Two lilies on a single stem,
Two butterflies upon one flower :--
  O happy we who look on them.

Who look upon them hand in hand
  Flushed in the rosy summer light ;
Who look upon them hand in hand
  And never give a thought to night.

Text Authorship:

  • by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894), "Song", appears in Goblin Market and other Poems, first published 1862

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

6. Music, when soft voices die  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Music, when soft voices die,	
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so [thy]1 thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "To ----", appears in Posthumous Poems, first published 1824

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Sloky", Prague, J. Otto, first published 1901
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Martin Stock) , "Musik, wenn leise Stimmen ersterben ...", copyright © 2002, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Bridge: "my"

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

7. When a mounting skylark sings  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
When a mounting skylark sings
	In the sunlit summer morn,
I know that heaven is up on high,
	And on earth are fields of corn.

But when a nightingale sings,
	In the moonlit summer even,
I know not if earth is merely earth,
	Only that heaven is heaven.

Text Authorship:

  • by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894), no title, appears in Sing-song: a nursery rhyme book, first published 1872

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

8. Going to bed  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
All around the house is the jet-black night;
  It stares through the window-pane;
It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,
  And it moves with the moving flame.

Now my little heart goes a beating like a drum,
  With the breath of the Bogies in my hair;
And all around the candle the crooked shadows come,
  And go marching along up the stair.

The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp,
  The shadow of the child that goes to bed --
All the wicked shadows coming tramp, tramp, tramp,
  With the black night overhead.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), "Shadow march", appears in A Child's Garden of Verses, in Northwest Passage, no. 2

See other settings of this text.

First published in Magazine of Art, March 1884
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

9. Windy Nights  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Whenever the moon and the stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.

Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,

By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), "Windy nights", appears in A Child's Garden of Verses, first published 1885

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Sylvain Labartette) , "Nuit venteuse", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
Total word count: 491
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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