Tears, idle tears | Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean

Tears, idle tears

Language: English

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Available sung texts: ← What is this?

• G. Holst

G. Holst sets stanzas 1-2

Text Authorship:

by Alfred Tennyson, Lord (1809 - 1892), appears in The Princess, first published 1847 [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 Frank Bridge (1879 - 1941), "Tears, idle tears", 1905, published 1982, first performed 1981 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Gustav Holst (1874 - 1934), "Tears, idle tears", op. 20a no. 3, H. 80 no. 3, stanzas 1-2 [ chorus ], from Songs from The Princess, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Joseph Kaufer (1909 - 1990), "Tears, idle tears", published 1951 [ voice and piano ], from Dover Beach and Other Songs, no. 8, Waukegan, Illinois: Lyric-Art [sung text checked 1 time]
by David Morton (b. 1920), "Tears, idle tears", published 1974 [ voice, harp, and oboe ], San Anselmo : Harp [sung text not yet checked]
by (Joseph) Joachim Raff (1822 - 1882), "Tears, Idle Tears", WoO 52a, published 1879 [ voice and piano ], note: two settings exist - G minor and F minor - both using WoO 52a [sung text checked 1 time]
by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Tears, Idle Tears", op. 65 (1945) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by P(atrick) Peter Sacco (b. 1928), "Tears, idle tears", published 1971 [ voice and piano ], Western International Music [sung text checked 1 time]
by Arthur Somervell, Sir (1863 - 1937), "Tears, idle tears", published 1890, first performed 1890 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958), "Tears, idle tears", 1902, published 1903, first performed 1903 [ voice and piano ], in the June 1903 Vocalist [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 20
Word count: 167