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Three Songs, the words by Shelley

Song Cycle by Frederick Delius (1862 - 1934)

1. Indian love song
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
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
Hath 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.

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Lines to an Indian Air"

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CHI Chinese (中文) (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • 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

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. Love's philosophy
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
The fountains mingle 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 spirit meet and 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 the earth
  And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
  If thou kiss not me?

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Love's philosophy"

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"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. To the Queen of my Heart
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
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.

Text 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]
Total word count: 417
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