A Poet to His Beloved
Language: English
I bring you with reverent hands
The books of my numberless dreams;
White woman that passion has worn
As the tide wears the dove-gray sands,
And with heart more old than the horn
That is brimmed from the pale fire of time:
White woman with numberless dreams
I bring you my passionate rhyme.
First published in
Senate, May 1896 as part of "O'Sullivan the Red to Mary Lavell", revised 1899
Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 22.
Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961), "A poet to his beloved", op. 40 no. 1 (1993) [ tenor, flute, string quartet, and piano ], from A Poet to His Beloved, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Paul Schwartz (1907 - 1999), "A Poet to His Beloved", 1945 [ high voice or medium voice and piano ], from A Poet to His Beloved [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "Un poète à sa bien-aimée", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2009-01-20
Line count: 8
Word count: 53
Un poète à sa bien‑aimée
Language: French (Français) after the English
Dans mes mains révérencieuses, je t'apporte
Les livres de mes innombrables rêves ;
Blanche femme que la passion a usée
Comme la marée use les sables gris tourterelle
Et au cœur plus vieux que la corne,
Submergé par le pâle feu du temps :
Blanche femme aux innombrables rêves,
Je t'apporte mes vers passionnés.
Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to French (Français) copyright © 2015 by Pierre Mathé, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
Based on:
This text was added to the website: 2015-12-27
Line count: 8
Word count: 52