I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright: I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet [Has]1 led me - who knows how? To thy chamber window, Sweet! The wandering airs they faint On the dark, the silent stream - The Champak odours fail Like sweet thoughts in a dream; The nightingale's complaint, It dies upon her heart; - As I must die on thine, O belovèd as thou art! Oh lift me from the grass! I die! I faint! I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats loud and fast; - Oh! press it to thine own again, Where it will break at last.
Three Songs, the words by Shelley
Song Cycle by Frederick Delius (1862 - 1934)
1. Indian love song  [sung text checked 1 time]
Authorship:
- by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Lines to an Indian Air" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Řádky k indické melodii"
- FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Indische Serenade", copyright © 2004, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
1 Delius: "Hath"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
2. Love's philosophy  [sung text checked 1 time]
The [fountains mingle]1 with the River And the Rivers with the Ocean, The winds of Heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one [another's being]2 mingle. Why not I with thine? - See the mountains kiss high Heaven And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the [sunlight clasps]3 the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What [are all these kissings]4 worth If thou kiss not me?
Authorship:
- by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Love's philosophy" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Filosofie lásky"
- FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Adolf Strodtmann) , "Philosophie der Liebe", appears in Lieder- und Balladenbuch amerikanischer und englischer Dichter der Gegenwart, first published 1862
- POL Polish (Polski) (Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer) , "Filozofia miłości"
1 Gounod: "fountain mingles"
2 Delius: "spirit meet and"
3 Gounod: "sunbeams clasp"
4 Delius: "is all this sweet work"; Gounod: "are all these kisses"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
3. To the Queen of my Heart  [sung text checked 1 time]
Shall we roam, my love, To the twilight grove, When the moon is rising bright? Oh, I'll whisper there, In the cool night air, What I dare not in broad daylight! I'll tell thee a part Of the thoughts that start To being when thou art nigh; And thy beauty, more bright Than the stars' soft light, Shall seem as a weft from the sky. When the pale moonbeam On tower and stream Sheds a flood of silver sheen, How I love to gaze As the cold ray strays O'er thy face, my heart's throned queen! Wilt thou roam with me To the restless sea, And linger upon the steep, And list to the flow Of the waves below How they toss and roar and leap? Those boiling waves, And the storm that raves At night o'er their foaming crest, Resemble the strife That, from earliest life, The passions have waged in my breast. Oh, come then, and rove To the sea or the grove, When the moon is rising bright, And I'll whisper there, In the cool night air, What I dare not in broad daylight.
Authorship:
- possibly by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "To the Queen of my Heart"
- possibly by James Augustus St. John (1795 - 1875), "To the Queen of my Heart"
See other settings of this text.
This poem might have been written by James Augustus St. John and published as a hoax, according to The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume 1, ed. by Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat, Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press, 2000. A discussion of the evidence for this position appears in the section "Lost Works" at the very end of the book (no pagination could be seen in Google Books).
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]