Dream tryst | The breaths of kissing night and day

by Francis Thompson (1859 - 1907)

Dream tryst

Language: English

Our translations: FRE

The breaths of kissing night and day
  Were mingled in the eastern Heaven:
Throbbing with unheard melody,
  Shook Lyra all its star-chord seven:
    When dusk shrank cold, and light trod shy,
      And dawn's gray eyes were troubled gray;
    And souls went palely up to the sky,
      And mine to Lucidè.

There was no change in her sweet eyes
  Since last I saw those sweet eyes shine;
There was no change in her deep heart
  Since last that deep heart knocked at mine.
    Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope's,
      Wherein did ever come and go
    The sparkle of the fountain-drops
      From her sweet soul below.

The chambers in the house of dreams
  Are fed with so divine an air
That Time's hoar wings grow young therein,
  And they who walk there are most fair.
    I joyed for me, I joyed for her,
      Who with the Past meet girt about:
    Where our last kiss still warms the air,
      Nor can her eyes go out.

Available sung texts: ← What is this?

• G. Holst

View text with all available footnotes

Confirmed with A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895, ed. by Edmund Clarence Stedman, Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1895.

Text Authorship:

by Francis Thompson (1859 - 1907), "Dream-Tryst" [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 William Denis Browne (1888 - 1915), "Dream-Tryst", 1909 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Henry Balfour Gardiner (1877 - 1950), "Dream-Tryst", 1902 [ baritone and orchestra ], first setting [sung text not yet checked]
by Henry Balfour Gardiner (1877 - 1950), "Dream-Tryst", 1909 [ baritone and orchestra ], second setting [sung text not yet checked]
by Gustav Holst (1874 - 1934), "Dream tryst" [ chorus ], partsong [sung text checked 1 time]
by Harold Vincent Jervis-Read (1883 - 1945), "Dream tryst" [ chorus and orchestra ], Ashdown Ltd [sung text not yet checked]

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

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 24
Word count: 167