LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,117)
  • Text Authors (19,508)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Benjamin Franklin King (1857 - 1894)

The Pessimist
 (Sung text for setting by G. Bachlund)
 Matches original text
Language: English 
Nothing to do but work;
Nothing to eat but food;
Nothing to wear but clothes,
To keep one from going nude.

Nothing to breathe but air;
Quick as a flash ’tis gone;
Nowhere to fall but off;
Nowhere to stand but on.

Nothing to comb but hair;
Nowhere to sleep but in bed;
Nothing to weep but tears;
Nothing to bury but dead.

Nothing to sing but songs,
Ah, well, alas! alack!
Nowhere to go but out;
Nowhere to come but back.

Nothing to see but sights;
Nothing to quench but thirst;
Nothing to have but what we’ve got;
Thus thro’ life we are cursed.

Nothing to strike but a gait;
Everything moves that goes.
Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever withstand these woes.

Composition:

    Set to music by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "The Pessimist", 2005 [ tenor and piano ], from The Sum of Life, no. 3

Text Authorship:

  • by Benjamin Franklin King (1857 - 1894), title 1: "The Sum of Life", title 2: "The Pessimist"

See other settings of this text.


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2007-05-02
Line count: 24
Word count: 126

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris