Four Songs of Night

Song Cycle by George Cory (b. 1920?)

?. So, we'll go no more a roving [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

So we'll go no more a-roving
  So late into the night,
Though the heart be [still]¹ as loving,
  And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears [the]² sheath,
  And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart [must pause to breathe]³,
  And Love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
  And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
  By the light of the moon.

Text Authorship:

by George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788 - 1824), "So we'll go no more a-roving", written 1817, appears in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of His Life, Volume II, first published 1830

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

View original text (without footnotes)
Included in a letter to Thomas Moore on February 28, 1817
See also Henley's "We'll go no more a-roving"
¹ Armstrong, White: "ne'er"
² Chávez: "its"
³ Armstrong, White: "itself must pause"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Total word count: 75