LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,111)
  • Text Authors (19,486)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

Eight Songs

Song Cycle by John Alden Carpenter (1876 - 1951)

1. The green river
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
I know a green grass path that leaves the field
  And, like a running river, winds along
  Into a leafy wood, where is no throng
Of birds at noon-day; and no soft throats yield
Their music to the moon.  The place is sealed,
  An unclaimed sovereignty of voiceless song,
  And all th' unravished silences belong
To some sweet singer lost, or unrevealed.

So is my soul become a silent place.
  Oh, may I wake from this uneasy night
  To find some voice of music manifold.
Let it be shape of sorrow with wan face,
  Or love, that swoons on sleep, or else delight
  That is as wide-eyed as a marigold.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Bruce Douglas, Lord (1870 - 1945), "The green river", appears in Sonnets by Lord Alfred Douglas, first published 1909

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this page: Geoffrey Wieting

2. Don't ceäre
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
At the feäst, I do mind very well, all the vo'ks
  Wer a-took in a happeren storm,
But we chaps took the maïdens, an' kept 'em wi' clokes
  Under shelter, all dry an' all warm;
An' to my lot vell Jeäne, that's my bride,
  That did titter, a-hung at my zide;
Zaid her aunt, "Why the vo'k 'ull talk finely o' you!"
  An' cried she, "I don't ceäre if they do."

When the time o' the feäst wer ageän a-come round,
  An' the vo'k wer a-gather'd woonce mwore,
Why, she guess'd if she went there, she'd soon be around
  An' a-took seäfely hwome to her door.
Zaid her mother, "Tis sure to be wet."
  Zaid her cousin, "T'ull rain by zunzet."
Zaid her aunt, "Why the clouds there do look black an' blue."
  An' zaid she, "I don't ceäre if they do."

 ... 

Now she's married, an' still in the midst ov her tweils
  She's as happy's the daylight is long,
She do goo out abroad wi' her feäce vull o' smiles,
  An' do work in the house wi' a zong.
An', zays woone, "She don't grieve, you can tell."
  Zays another, "Why don't she look well!"
Zays her aunt, "Why the young vo'k do envy you two,"
  An' zays she, "I don't ceäre if they do."

Text Authorship:

  • by William Barnes (1801 - 1886), "Don't ceäre", appears in Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this page: Geoffrey Wieting

3. Looking‑Glass River
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Smooth it slides upon its travel,
Here a wimple, there a gleam -
O the clean gravel!
O the smooth stream!

Sailing blossoms, silver fishes,
Paven pools as clear as air -
How a child wishes 
To live down there!

Text Authorship:

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

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Bid me to live
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Bid me to live, and I will live
  Thy Protestant to be:
Or bid me love, and I will give
  A loving heart to thee.

A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
  A heart as sound and free,
As in the whole world thou canst find,
 That heart I'll give to thee.

 ... 

Bid me despair, and I'll despair,
  Under that cypress-tree:
Or bid me die, and I will dare
  E'en Death, to die for thee.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674)

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Dis‑moi d'aimer
 (Sung text)

Language: French (Français) 
Dis-moi de vivre, et je vivrai
  Pour n'adorer que toi,
Dis-moi d'aimer, et je vous donne
  Un coeur qui n'est qu'amour;

Un coeur si pur, un coeur si sûr.
  Un coeur si plein de toi,
Qu'il n'en est pas un seul au monde,
  Qui t'aime autant que moi.

 ... 

Text Authorship:

  • by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949)

Based on:

  • a text in English by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674)
    • Go to the text page.

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this page: Geoffrey Wieting

5. Go, lovely rose  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Go, lovely Rose! --
Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
  That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,
  And shuns to have her graces spied
That hadst thou sprung
  In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

[ ... ]

Then die! -- that she
  The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee:
  How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Yet though thou fade,
From thy dead leaves let fragrance rise;
And teach the maid
That goodness time's rude hand defies;
That virtue lives when beauty dies.

Text Authorship:

  • by Edmund Waller (1608 - 1687)
  • by Henry Kirke White (1785 - 1806)

See other settings of this text.

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

  • SPA Spanish (Español) (José Miguel Llata) , copyright © 2020, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
See also Ezra Pound's Envoi.

1 Attwood: "admir'd" [possibly a mistake]

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

6. The cock shall crow
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
The cock shall crow in the morning grey,
The bugles blow at the break of day,
  The cock shall sing and the merry bugles ring;
And all the little brown birds sing upon the spray.

The thorn shall blow in the month of May,
My love shall go in her holiday array,
  But I shall like in the Kirkyard nigh,
While all the little brown birds sing upon the spray.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), "Ditty", appears in Songs of Travel and other verses, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this page: Geoffrey Wieting

7. The little fly
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink & sing:
Till some blind hand 
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength & breath
And the want 
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "The fly", appears in Songs of Innocence and Experience, in Songs of Experience, no. 10, first published 1794

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "La mouche", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • RUS Russian (Русский) [singable] (Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov) , "Мотылёк", copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

8. A cradle‑song
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming o'er the joys of night;
Sleep, sleep, in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

 ... 

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "A cradle song", written c1793, appears in Notebook, possibly intended for Songs of Innocence

See other settings of this text.

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Geoffrey Wieting
Total word count: 806
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

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris