LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,111)
  • Text Authors (19,486)
  • 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 Anonymous / Unidentified Author

Forgive as I forgive
Language: English 
We parted, and in anger, 
  With half-averted eye,
You gave back ev'ry token 
  Of joyous hours gone by;
But one long day of absence
  Chased anger from my mind,
And I remember'd only 
  How good thou wert, how kind;
With sadden'd heart I sought thee,
  Thy brow was clouded yet, --
Forgive as I forgive thee; 
  Forget, as I forget.

The chain of pure affection 
  Was never snapt apart 
By thoughtless words of anger
  Which came not from the heart;
And yet for worlds I would not 
  Such hours of anguish live,
Not even for the pleasure 
  Of hearing thee forgive;
By all the pangs I suffered,
  By all thy past regret, 
Forgive, as I forgive thee;
  Forget, as I forget.

Confirmed with The Nerves, J. T. Wood, London, 1865, page 3.


Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author, "Forgive as I forgive" [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 Franz Wilhelm Abt (1819 - 1885), "Forgive as I forgive", op. 433a (Vier Lieder aus dem Englischen für eine Singstimme mit Begleitung des Pianoforte) no. 1, published 1872 [ voice and piano ], St. Louis, Balmer & Weber; a publisher reused this opus number in 1907 so we have added the letter 'a', also set in German (Deutsch) [sung text not yet checked]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

  • Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by C. Zincken ; composed by Franz Wilhelm Abt.
      • Go to the text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2020-11-07
Line count: 24
Word count: 120

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