Two Songs

Song Cycle by Mark Raphael (b. 1900)

?. The fly [sung text not yet checked]

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

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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]

?. To Electra

Language: English

— This text is not currently
in the database but will be added
as soon as we obtain it. —

Text Authorship:

by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674)

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Note: this is a placeholder until it is determined which "To Electra" the composers below used. Herrick wrote several poems with this title.

Total word count: 69