Leave, O leave me to my [sorrows]1;
Here I'll sit and fade away,
Till I'm nothing but a spirit,
And I lose this form of clay.

Then if chance along this forest
Any walk in pathless ways,
[Thro']2 the gloom he'll see my shadow
Hear my voice upon the breeze.

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¹ Owen: "sorrow"
² Owen: "Through"

Text Authorship:

• by William Blake (1757 - 1827), appears in An Island in the Moon, Chapter XI [author's text not yet checked 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 Nicolas Flagello (1928 - 1994), "Leave, O leave me to my sorrows", 1964, published 1965 [ high voice and piano ], from Songs from William Blake's "An Island in the Moon", no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Scott Gendel (b. 1977), "Hear my voice", 2005 [ soprano and violin ], from Shadow Songs, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Scott Gendel (b. 1977), "Fade away", 2005 [ soprano and violin ], from Shadow Songs, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Fritz Bennicke Hart (1874 - 1949), "A song of sorrow", op. 9 (Seven songs) no. 1 (1912) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Olga Mills , "A song of sorrow", published c1927 [ voice and flute or violin ], London : Oxford University Press [sung text not yet checked]
• by Morfydd Llwyn Owen (1891 - 1918), "A Song of Sorrow", 1911 [ voice and piano ]
      Score: Cardiff University Library [external link]  [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Felix Werder (b. 1922), "Leave, O leave me", 1961-2 [ soprano and piano ], from From the Blake Collection, op. 42 and op. 50, no. 6 [sung text not yet checked]

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Justin Miller [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2009-01-29
Line count: 8
Word count: 52