by Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637)
Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with...
Language: English
Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears:
[Yet slower, yet; O faintly,]1 gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her [division]2 when she sings.
Droop herbs and flowers,
Fall grief in showers,
Our [beauties are]3 not ours;
[O, I could still,]4
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
[Drop, drop, drop, drop,]5
Since [nature's]6 pride is, now, a withered daffodil.
About the headline (FAQ)
View original text (without footnotes)1 Horsley: "O slower yet, O fainter"
2 Horsley: "division"
3 Horsley: "beauty is"
4 Quilter: "Or I could still"; Horsley: "O could I still"
5 Horsley: "Fall down, fall down."
6 Horsley: "summer's"
Text Authorship:
- by Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637), from Cynthia's Revels, Act I Scene 2. [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 Seymour Barab (1921 - 2014), "Slow, slow, fresh fount" [ soprano, clarinet, and piano ], from Bits and Pieces, no. 1, ECS Publishing [sung text not yet checked]
- by Leslie R. Bassett (b. 1923), "Slow, slow fresh fount", published c1966, from To Music, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Geoffrey Bush (1920 - 1998), "Echo's Lament for Narcissus", 1952 [ baritone and piano ], from Three Songs of Ben Jonson, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by John Eaton (1935 - 2015), "Song", from Songs for Ursula, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Miriam Gideon (1906 - 1996), "Slow, slow, fresh fount", 1941 [ SATB chorus or TTBB chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ivor (Bertie) Gurney (1890 - 1937), "Echo's Lament of Narcissus", c1922 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Daron Aric Hagen (b. 1961), "Echo's song", from Echo's songs, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
- by William Horsley (1774 - 1858), "Slow fresh fount", 1811 [ chorus ], partsong [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Will Ogdon (1921 - 2013), "Slow, slow fresh fount", 1950 [ baritone and piano ], from Three Baritone Songs, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Daniel Rogers Pinkham (1923 - 2006), "Slow, slow fresh fount" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Roger Quilter (1877 - 1953), "By a fountainside", op. 12 no. 6 (1907), published 1908 [ voice and piano ], from Seven Elizabethan Lyrics, no. 6, London, Boosey [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Ned Rorem (1923 - 2022), "Echo's song" [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 11
Word count: 69