The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the [world]1 dies With the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies When love is done.
About the headline (FAQ)
View original text (without footnotes)Confirmed with Francis William Bourdillon, Among the Flowers, London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1878, page 101.
1 Foote, Venables: "bright world"Text Authorship:
- by Francis William Bourdillon (1852 - 1921), "Light", appears in Among the Flowers, first published 1878 [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 Cees van As (1946 - 1986), "Light", op. 2 no. 3, published 1982 [ female voice and piano ], from Mysteries, no. 3, Amsterdam: Donemus Publishing [sung text not yet checked]
- by Arthur Foote (1853 - 1937), "The night has a thousand eyes", op. 26 (Eleven songs for voice and piano) no. 3, published 1892 [ voice and piano ], Boston : A.P. Schmidt [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Richard Hageman (1881 - 1966), "The night has a thousand eyes", 1935?, published 1935, copyright © 1935 [ voice and piano ], London, Winthrop Rogers; Booesy & Hawkes [sung text not yet checked]
- by Lori Laitman (b. 1955), "The night has a thousand eyes", first performed 1995 [ soprano and piano ], from Days and Nights, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "The Night has a Thousand Eyes", op. 254 (1950) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ian Venables (b. 1955), "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes", op. 41 (Songs) no. 3 (2011), first performed 2012 [ voice and string quartet ] [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Mabel Nightingale Woodward (1876 - 1911), "The night has a thousand eyes", published 1912 [ voice and piano ], from Songs, no. 32, Birmingham : Press of the Birmingham Printers [sung text not yet checked]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in Russian (Русский), a translation by Yakov Petrovich Polonsky (1819 - 1898) , "Из Бурдильёна", first published 1874 ; composed by César Antonovich Cui, Grigory Petrovich Gayevsky, Jurgis Karnavičius, Aleksandr Borisovich Matyukhin.
Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , "Viel tausend Augen hat die Nacht", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Melanie Trumbull
This text was added to the website: 2008-08-09
Line count: 8
Word count: 45
Noč' smotrit tysjačami glaz, A den' gljadit odnim; No solnca net - i po zemle T'ma steletsja, kak dym. Um smotrit tysjačami glaz, Ljubov' gljadit odnim; No net ljubvi - i gasnet žizn', I dni plyvut, kak dym.
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Text Authorship:
- by Yakov Petrovich Polonsky (1819 - 1898), "Из Бурдильёна", first published 1874 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in English by Francis William Bourdillon (1852 - 1921), "Light", appears in Among the Flowers, first published 1878
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by César Antonovich Cui (1835 - 1918), "Из Бурдильёна", op. 76 (Шесть стихотворении Я. П. Полонского = Shest' stikhotvorenii Ja. P. Polonskogo (Six poems by Polonsky)) no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Grigory Petrovich Gayevsky (1872 - 1942), "Ночь смотрит тысячами глаз" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Jurgis Karnavičius (1884 - 1941), "Ночь смотрит тысячами глаз" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Aleksandr Borisovich Matyukhin (b. 1947), "Ночь смотрит тысячами глаз" [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 8
Word count: 36