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Airs and Fancies

Song Cycle by Seymour Barab (1921 - 2014)

1. Music, when soft voices die  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Music, when soft voices die,	
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so [thy]1 thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Text Authorship:

  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "To ----", appears in Posthumous Poems, first published 1824

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Sloky", Prague, J. Otto, first published 1901
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Martin Stock) , "Musik, wenn leise Stimmen ersterben ...", copyright © 2002, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Bridge: "my"

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

2. The oocuck  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
`The cuckoo !' cried my child, the while I slept
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

  • by Justin Richardson , "The oocuck", copyright ©

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This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.

3. Weep you no more, sad fountains   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Weep you no more, sad fountains;
  What need [you]1 flow so fast?
Look how the snowy mountains
  Heaven's sun doth gently waste!
    But my sun's heavenly eyes
      View not your weeping,
      That now lies sleeping,
    [Softly now, softly]2 lies
        Sleeping.

Sleep is a reconciling,
  A rest that peace begets;
Doth not the sun rise smiling
  When fair at [e'en]3 he sets?
    Rest you, then, rest, sad eyes!
      Melt not in weeping,
      While she lies sleeping,
    [Softly now, softly]2 lies
        Sleeping.

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author ( 16th century )

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Julia Hamann) , "Tränen", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
1 van Dieren: "ye"
2 van Dieren, Holst, Moeran: "Softly, now softly"
3 Parry: "eve"; Moeran, Quilter, van Dieren: "even"; Holst: "ev'n"

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

4. Bread and butter  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Werther had a love for Charlotte
 Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
 She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,
 And a moral man was Werther,
And, for all the wealth of Indies,
 Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sighed and pined and ogled,
 And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
 And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body
 Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
 Went on cutting bread and butter. 

Text Authorship:

  • by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 - 1863), "Sorrows of Werther", appears in Miscellanies: Prose and Verse, Volume I, first published 1855

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. Five reasons  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink;
Good wine -- a friend -- or being dry --
Or lest we should be by and by --
Or any other reason why.

Text Authorship:

  • by Henry Aldrich (1647 - 1710), "Reasons for drinking"

Based on:

  • a text in Latin by Henry Aldrich (1647 - 1710)
    • Go to the text page.

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

6. Autumn song  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
         Laid on it for a covering,
         And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

And how the swift beat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain,
         In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
         Knowest thou not? and how the chief
Of joys seems -- not to suffer pain?

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
         Bound up at length for harvesting,
         And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

Text Authorship:

  • by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882), "Autumn song"

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

7. Why does (s)he so long delay?   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
   By Paul, the Silentiary

Why does she so long delay?
Night is waning fast away;
Thrice have I my lamp renewed,
Watching here in solitude,
Where can she so long delay?
Where, so long delay?

Vainly now have two lamps shone;
See the third is nearly gone:
Oh that Love would, like the ray
Of that weary lamp, decay!
But no, alas, it burns still on,
Still, still, burns on.

Gods, how oft the traitress dear
Swore, by Venus, she'd be here!
But to one so false as she
What is man or deity?
Neither doth this proud one fear, --
No, neither doth she fear.

Text Authorship:

  • by Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852), "Why does she so long delay?"

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 629
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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

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