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Five songs

Song Cycle by Leo Smith (1881 - 1952)

?. Cradle song  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Baby, baby bright,
Sleep can steal from sight
Little of your light:

Soft as fire in dew,
Still the life in you
Lights your slumber through.

Four white eyelids keep
Fast the seal of sleep
Deep as love is deep:

Yet, though closed it lies,
Love behind them spies
Heaven in two blue eyes.

Text Authorship:

  • by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837 - 1909), no title, appears in A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems, in Cradle songs, no. 1, first published 1884

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. My star  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
All, that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Browning (1812 - 1889), "My star", appears in Men and Women, first published 1855

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

1. The wild flower's song  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
As I wander'd the forest,
The green leaves among,
I heard a wild flower
Singing a song:

"I slept in the dark
In the silent night,
I murmur'd my fears
And I felt delight.

"In the morning I went
As rosy as morn
To seek for a new Joy,
But I met with scorn."

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "The wild flower's song", from Life, Vol. II, first published 1863

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. Laughing song   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it; 

When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene;
When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing "Ha ha he!"

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread:
Come live, and be merry, and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of "Ha ha he!"

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "Laughing song", appears in Songs of Innocence and Experience, in Songs of Innocence, no. 10, first published 1789

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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
  • RUS Russian (Русский) [singable] (Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov) , "Песня смеха", copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. I love the jocund dance  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
I love the [jocund]1 dance, 
The softly breathing song, 
Where innocent eyes do glance,
[And where]2 lisps the maiden's tongue.  

I love the laughing vale, 
I love the echoing [hills]3, 
Where mirth does never fail, 
And the jolly swain laughs his fill. 

I love the pleasant cot,
I love the innocent bow'r,
Where white and brown is our lot,
Or fruit in the midday hour. 

I love the oaken seat,
Beneath the oaken tree,
Where all [the old]4 villagers meet,
And laugh [our]5 sports to see. 

I love our neighbors all,
But Kitty, I [better love thee]6;
And love them [I ever]7  shall;
But thou art all to me.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "Song"

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View original text (without footnotes)
1 Mitchell: "merry"
2 Mitchell: "Where"
3 Mitchell: "hill"
4 Mitchell: "the"
5 Mitchell: "my"
6 Mitchell: "love thee more"
7 Mitchell: "ever I"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 412
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