Music for a while

Song Cycle by Wim Zwaag (b. 1960)

1. Music for a while  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Music for a while
Shall all your cares beguile:
Wond'ring how your pains were eas'd
And disdaining to be pleas'd
Till Alecto free the dead
From their eternal bands,
Till the snakes drop from her head,
And the whip from out her hands.

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Música per una estona", copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "La musique pour un moment", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. Sweeter than roses  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Sweeter than roses, or cool evening breeze
On a warm flowery shore, was the dear kiss,
First trembling made me freeze,
Then shot like fire all o'er.
What magic has victorious love!
For all I touch or see since that dear kiss,
I hourly prove, all is love to me.

Text Authorship:

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Més dolç que les roses ", copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Plus doux que les roses", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]

3. If music be the food of love   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
If music be the food of love,
Sing on till I am fill'd with joy;
For then my list'ning soul you move
To pleasures that can never cloy.
Your eyes, your mien, your tongue declare
That you are music ev'rywhere.

Pleasures invade both eye and ear,
So fierce the transports are, they wound,
And all my senses feasted are,
Tho' yet the treat is only sound,
Sure I must perish by your charms,
Unless you save me in your arms.

Text Authorship:

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Si la música és l’aliment de l’amor", copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Si la musique est la nourriture de l'amour", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Elaine Marie Ortiz-Arandes) , "Wenn Musik die Nahrung der Liebe ist", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Paolo Montanari) , "Se la musica è il cibo dell'amore", copyright © 2006, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Note: the first line quotes Orsino's lines in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Not all my torments can your pity move  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Not all my torments can your pity move,
Your scorn increases with my love.
Yet to the grave I will my sorrow bear;
I love, tho' I despair.

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author

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) , "Tous mes tourments ne peuvent émouvoir ta pitié", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 201