Rose cheek'd Laura, come,
Sing thou [sweetly]1 with thy beauty's 
  Silent music, either other 
    Sweetly gracing.

  Lovely forms do flow
From [concent]2 divinely framed:
  Heaven is music, and thy beauty's 
     Birth is heav'nly.

  These dull notes we sing
Discords need for helps to grace them;
  Only beauty purely loving
    Knows no discord,

  But still moves delight,
Like clear springs renew'd by flowing,
  Ever perfect, ever in them-
    Selves eternal.

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¹ sometimes "smoothly"
² [sic]; this is an archaic word meaning "a concord, as of sounds, voices, etc." (Collins English Dictionary, 10th edition, 2009)

Text Authorship:

• by Thomas Campion (1567 - 1620), no title, first published 1602 [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 Thomas Campion (1567 - 1620), "Rose cheek'd Laura, come" [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Ivor (Bertie) Gurney (1890 - 1937), "Rose cheek'd Laura, come", alternate title: "Silent music", 1921-1922 [ voice and piano ], revised 1926 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Virgil Garnett Thomson (1896 - 1989), "Rose cheek'd Laura, come", from Four songs to poems of Thomas Campion, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2008-10-17
Line count: 16
Word count: 72