LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,102)
  • Text Authors (19,442)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Thomas Campion (1567 - 1620)

The cypress curtain of the night
Language: English 
Our translations:  SPA
The cypress curtain of the night is spread,
And over all a silent dew is cast.
The weaker cares by sleep are conquered.
But I alone with hideous grief aghast,
In spite of Morpheus' charms a watch do keep
Over mine eyes to banish careless sleep.

Yet oft my ttrembling eyes through faintness close;
And then the map of Hell before me stands,
Which ghosts do see and I am one of those
Ordaines to pine in sorrow's endless bands,
Since from my wretched soul all hopes are reft,
And now no cause of life to me is left.

Grief, sieze my soul for that will still endure
When my crazed body is consumed and gone;
Bear it to thy black den, there keep it sure,
Where thou ten thousand souls dost tire upon:
Yet all do not afford such food to thee
All this poor one, the worser part of me.

Text Authorship:

  • by Thomas Campion (1567 - 1620) [author's text not yet checked 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), "The cypress curtain of the night", published 1601, from A Booke of Ayres = A Book of Airs, no. 9 [sung text checked 1 time]

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Richard Flatter) , "Bangnis", appears in Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten, first published 1936
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Elisa Rapado) , "La noche ha extendido su manto oscuro como el ciprés", copyright © 2020, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 18
Word count: 152

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris