[Sweetheart, do]1 not love too long:
I loved long and long, 
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song. 

All through the years of our youth
Neither could have known 
Their own thought from the other's,
We were so much at one. 

But O, in a minute [she]2 changed --
O do not love too long, 
Or [you will]3 grow out of fashion
Like an old song.

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 86.

¹ Wilkinson: "O do"
² Rorem: "he"
³ Wilkinson: "you'll"

Text Authorship:

• by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "O do not love too long", appears in In the Seven Woods, first published 1904 [author's text checked 2 times 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 Seymour Barab (1921 - 2014), "Do not love too long" [ soprano, clarinet, and piano ], from Bits and Pieces, no. 7, ECS Publishing [sung text not yet checked]
• by Steven Ebel , "An old song", 2011 [ high voice and string quartet ], from Irish Lullabies, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Ned Rorem (1923 - 2022), "O do not love too long" [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Raymond Warren (b. 1928), "O do not love too long", published 1971 [ baritone and piano ], from Songs of Old Age [sung text not yet checked]
• by Raymond Warren (b. 1928), "O do not love too long", 1965 [ tenor and guitar ], from The Pity of Love [sung text not yet checked]
• by Stephen Wilkinson (b. 1919), "O do not love too long" [ voice and piano ], from Eternal Summer, no. 9 [sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "Oh, n'aime pas trop longtemps", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: John Versmoren

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 69