To find the Western path, Right thro' the Gates of Wrath I urge my way; Sweet Mercy leads me on With soft repentant moan: I see the break of day. The war of swords and spears, Melted by dewy tears, Exhales on high; The Sun is freed from fears, And with soft grateful tears Ascends the sky.
To find the Western path
Set by George Dyson (1883 - 1964), "To find the Western path", from Quo Vadis: a Cycle of Poems, no. 9  [sung text checked 1 time]
Note: this setting is made up of several separate texts.
Authorship:
- by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "Morning", written c1800-10, from the Rossetti manuscript, part II [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- RUS Russian (Русский) [singable] (Dmitri Smirnov) , copyright © 1981, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments. -- Die, If thou wouldst be with [that]1 which thou dost seek! Follow where all is fled! -- [Rome's azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.]2 Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart? [Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here They have departed; thou shouldst now depart! A light is passed from the revolving year, And man, and woman; and what still is dear Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. The soft sky smiles,--the low wind whispers near: 'Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither, No more let Life divide what Death can join together.]2 That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, [That Beauty in which all things work and move, That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love Which through the web of being blindly wove By man and beast and earth and air and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,]3 Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given; The massy earth and spherèd skies are riven! I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, [The soul of Adonais, like]2 a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
Authorship:
- by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), "Adonais" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
1 Dyson: "those"
2 omitted by Dyson.
3 Dyson: "That beauty which birth can quench not,/ That sustaining love, now beams on me."
Researcher for this text: Harry Joelson
Love, from its awful throne of patient power In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings. Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, These are the seals of that most firm assurance Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; [And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, Mother of many acts and hours, should free The serpent that would clasp her with his length;]1 These are the spells by which to [reassume]2 An empire o'er the disentangled doom. To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; [To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;]3 Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This[, like thy glory, Titan,]1 is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.
Authorship:
- by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), no title, appears in Prometheus Unbound, excerpt [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
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View original text (without footnotes)1 omitted by Dyson and Vaughan Williams in Symphony #7
2 Dyson: "assume"
3 omitted by Vaughan Williams in Symphony #7
Research team for this text: Ahmed E. Ismail , Harry Joelson
Holy is the True Light, and passing wonderful, lending radiance to them that endured in the heat of [the]1 conflict, from Christ they inherit a home of unfading splendour, wherein they rejoice with [gladness evermore]2. [Alleluia!]1
Authorship:
- by George Herbert Palmer (1842 - 1933) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in Latin by Bible or other Sacred Texts [text unavailable]
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View original text (without footnotes)1 omitted by Dyson, Near.
2 Dyson: "gladness for evermore"
Researcher for this text: Harry Joelson