Bendemeer's Stream | There's a bower of roses

by Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852)

There's a bower of roses

Language: English

There's a bower of roses,
by Bendemeer's Stream,
And the nightingale sings
'round it all the day long.
In the time of my childhood
'Twas sweet like a dream,
To sit by the roses
And hear the bird's song.
That bow'r and its music
I ne'er can forget,
But of when alone
In the bloom of the year
I think, "Is the nightingale
singing there yet?"
Are the roses still bright
by the calm Bendemeer?"

No, the roses soon withered
that hung o'er the wave,
But the blossoms were gathered
While freshly they shone,
And the dew was distilled
On the flowers, that gave
All the fragrance of summer -
when summer is gone.
Thus memory draws from delight
ere it dies,
An essence that breathes
of it many a year.
Thus, bright to my soul
as 'twas then to my eyes,
Is that bow'r on the banks
of the calm Bendemeer.

About the headline (FAQ)

Confirmed with Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh: an Oriental Romance, third edition, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1817, page 63. Appears in The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.

Text Authorship:

by Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852), no title, appears in Lalla Rookh, in The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, first published 1817 [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 Henry Balfour Gardiner (1877 - 1950), "The Banks of calm Bendemeer", 1893 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Charles Marshall (1857 - 1927), "Bendemeer's Stream" [sung text checked 1 time]
by Maude Valérie White (1855 - 1937), "There's a bower of roses", published 1881 [ voice and piano ], London: Boosey & Co. [sung text not yet checked]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

Also set in French (Français), a translation by Sabine-Casimire-Amable Tastu (1795 - 1885) , "L'Odalisque" [an adaptation] ; composed by Giulio Alary, Alfredo Catalani, Léon Dufils.
- Go to the text.
Also set in French (Français), a translation by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786 - 1859) , "Chant d'une jeune esclave", subtitle: "Imité de Moore", written 1821, first published 1821 [an adaptation] ; composed by Caroline Martainville, Edmond Michotte.
- Go to the text.
Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Friedrich Ludwig Breuer (1786 - 1833) , no title [an adaptation] ; composed by Franz Aloys Theodor Commer, Johann Peter Cornelius D'Alquen.
- Go to the text.
Also set in Italian (Italiano), a translation by Sabine-Casimire-Amable Tastu (1795 - 1885) [an adaptation] ; composed by Alfredo Catalani.
- Go to the text.

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Melanie Trumbull

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 32
Word count: 151