by Walter De la Mare (1873 - 1956)
Be gentle, O hands of a child
Language: English
Be gentle, O hands of a child; Be true: like a shadowy sea In the starry darkness of night Are your eyes to me. But words are shallow, and soon Dreams fade that the heart once knew; And youth fades out in the mind, In the dark eyes too. What can a tired heart say, Which the wise of the world have made dumb? Save to the lonely dreams of a child, "Return again, come!"
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Text Authorship:
- by Walter De la Mare (1873 - 1956), "Dreams", appears in The Listeners and Other Poems, first published 1912 [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 Walter Joseph Buczynski (b. 1933), "Dreams", 1955 [ alto and piano ], from Four Poems of Walter de la Mare [sung text not yet checked]
- by Victor Edward Galway , "Be gentle, O hands of a child", published 1948 [ satb chorus a cappella ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Gaynor D. Garrett , "Dreams", 1954 [ soprano or tenor and piano ], from Three Poems of Walter de la Mare [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Dreams", op. 43 (1944) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Douglas Steele (1910 - 1999), "Dreams" [ voice and piano ], Manchester, Forsyth Publications [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2008-01-13
Line count: 12
Word count: 75