by Charles Hanson Towne (1877 - 1949)
O tomb! within thy shadows can it be
Language: English
O tomb! within thy shadows can it be My dear beloved hides away from me? O tomb, by Allah, tell me, lest I die, Is all her beauty vanished utterly? Have her vast charms been blotted out? -- her white And pallid brow been lost in thy deep night? Surely, O tomb! no bit of heaven is thine, Who foldest close that wondrous love of mine. Yet in thy depths, thy darkened depths, O tomb, I see the stars shine and white lilies bloom!
About the headline (FAQ)
Confirmed with Charles Hanson Towne, The Quiet Singer And Other Poems, New York, B. W. Dodge & Company, 1908, page 117.
Text Authorship:
- by Charles Hanson Towne (1877 - 1949), no title, appears in The Quiet Singer and Other Poems, in Songs out of the Orient, in 84. A Baghdad Lover (Being Certain Fragments from Scheherazade’s Songs in “The Thousand and One Nights”), no. 9 [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 Blair Fairchild (1877 - 1933), "O Tomb!", op. 25 no. 9, published 1911 [ voice and piano ], from A Baghdad lover, no. 9, New York : H.W. Gray [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2023-02-03
Line count: 10
Word count: 83