There was once a poor clown all dressed in white,
  [In a dungeon, chained to the bars]1 ; 
And he danced all day, and he danced all night, 
  To the sound of the dancing stars. 

"O clown, silly clown, O why do you dance ? 
  You know you can never be free. 
You are tied by the leg to the strings of chance, 
  [But]2 you dance like a captive flea." 

"My chain is heavy, my [dungeon]3 is dark, 
  I know I can never be free. 
In my heart, in my heart there's a dancing spark, 
  And the stars make music for me. 

"Oh ! muffle my cell and rivet my chains, 
  And fetter my feet and my hands, 
My soul is a horse of foam without reins
  That dances on deathless sands." 

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with The Collected Poems of Maurice Baring, London : John Lane, the Bodley Head; New York : John Lane Company, 1911, page 58.

¹ Smyth: "And chained to the dungeon bars"
² Smyth: "Yet"
³ Smyth: "cell"

Text Authorship:

• by Maurice Baring (1874 - 1945), "The Clown", appears in Collected Poems, first published 1925 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Ethel Mary Smyth, Dame (1858 - 1944), "The Clown", 1913, published 1913 [ baritone or mezzo-soprano and orchestra ], from Three songs, no. 1, Leipzig: Universal Edition, also set in German (Deutsch) [sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

• Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Rudolf Stephan Hoffmann (1878 - 1931) ; composed by Ethel Mary Smyth, Dame.
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2016-01-01
Line count: 16
Word count: 132