by John Masefield (1878 - 1967)
Laugh and be merry, remember, better the...
Language: English
Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song, Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong. Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span. Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man. Laugh and be merry: remember, in olden time. God made Heaven and Earth for joy He took in a rhyme, Made them, and filled them full with the strong red wine of His mirth The splendid joy of the stars: the joy of the earth. So we must laugh and drink from the deep blue cup of the sky, Join the jubilant song of the great stars sweeping by, Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord. Laugh and be merry together, like brothers akin, Guesting awhile in the rooms of a beautiful inn, Glad till the dancing stops, and the lilt of the music ends. Laugh till the game is played; and be you merry, my friends.
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Authorship:
- by John Masefield (1878 - 1967), "Laugh and be merry", appears in Ballads, first published 1903 [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 Rutland Boughton (1878 - 1960), "Laugh and be merry", 1944 [ voice, piano, and violin ], from Five Songs, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Thomas Vernon Griffiths (1894 - ?), "Laugh and be merry" [ TTBB chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Joseph Holbrooke (1878 - 1958), "Choral: Laugh and be merry", published 1934 [ SATB chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Laugh and Be Merry", op. 5 (1943) [ voice and piano ], from The Pageant of Life, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ian Venables (b. 1955), "Lauugh and be merry", op. 43 no. 4 (2012), published 2012 [ baritone, string quartet, piano ], from Songs of the Severn, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2008-12-30
Line count: 16
Word count: 183