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Eight Songs of William Blake

Song Cycle by Bernard Sidney Garte (1923 - 1953)

1. Spring   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Sound the Flute!
Now [it's]1 mute.
Birds delight
Day and Night.
Nightingale
In the dale,
Lark in Sky, 2
Merrily, 
Merrily Merrily to welcome in the Year.

Little Boy,
Full of Joy;
Little Girl,
Sweet and small.
Cock does crow,
So do you.
Merry voice
Infant noise
Merrily Merrily to welcome in the Year.

Little Lamb
Here I am,
Come and [lick
My white neck]3.
Let me pull
Your soft Wool.
Let me kiss
Your soft face.
Merrily Merrily [we]4 welcome in the Year.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "Spring", appears in Songs of Innocence and Experience, in Songs of Innocence, no. 15, first published 1789

See other settings of this text.

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with William Blake, Songs of Innocence, 1789.

1 MacNutt: "'tis"
2 Dougherty adds: "Out of sight"
3 MacNutt: "play/ Hours away"
4 MacNutt: "to"

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Garrett Medlock [Guest Editor]

2. The sunflower  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime,
Where the traveller's journey is done:

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "Ah! Sun-flower! weary of time", appears in Songs of Innocence and Experience, in Songs of Experience, no. 14, 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) , "Ah ! tournesol !", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Elisa Rapado) , copyright © 2020, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Love's secret  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Never seek to tell thy love 
Love that never told [can]1 be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
[Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears]2 --
Ah, she [doth]3 depart.

Soon as she was gone from me
[A traveller came by]4
Silently, invisibly --
[He took her with a sigh]5.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "Love's Secret"

See other settings of this text.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Stöhr: "shall"
2 Stöhr: "Trembling between hope and fear"
3 Stöhr: "did"
4 Stöhr: "A boy chanced going by"
5 Leoni: "O, was no deny"

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Johann Winkler

4. 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

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. The original sin  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
I laid me down upon a bank,
Where Love lay sleeping;
I heard among the rushes dank
Weeping, weeping.

Then I went to the heath and the wild,
To the thistles and thorns of the waste;
And they told me how they were beguiled,
Driven out, and compelled to the chaste.

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), written 1793, appears in Notebook

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

6. A divine image   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Cruelty has a human heart,
 And Jealousy a human face,
Terror the human form divine,
 And Secrecy the human dress.

The human dress is forgèd iron,
 The human form a fiery forge,
The human face a furnace seal'd,
 The human heart its hungry gorge.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "A divine image", written 1791-4, possibly intended for Songs of Experience

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

7. From the Preface to Milton  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of Desire!
Bring me my Spear! Oh, Clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of Fire.

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant Land!

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "And did those feet in ancient time", written c1804, appears in Milton, a Poem in Two Books, from the preface

See other settings of this text.

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Und schritten jene Füße einst", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Aminta Iriarte) , "Jerusalén", copyright © 2003, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Note: referred to by Miriam Waddington in The Snows of William Blake

Researcher for this page: Aminta Iriarte

8. The divine image   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
 All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
 Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
 Is God, our Father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
 Is man, His child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
 Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
 And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
 That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
 Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
 In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
When Mercy, Love and Pity dwell
 There God is dwelling too.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "The divine image", appears in Songs of Innocence and Experience, in Songs of Innocence, no. 12, first published 1789

See other settings of this text.

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Thomas F. Schubert) , "Das Ebenbild Gottes", copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • RUS Russian (Русский) [singable] (Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov) , "Божественное подобие", copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
Total word count: 650
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