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by Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols (1893 - 1944)

Pan and Echo â€“ The naiads' music
Language: English 
Where while I seek you, Echo, do you lie, Love? I love!
Yes, and you love me say, none other -- none? One!
You, you alone I love, for you there's no one else? One else!
Can you not say "I love you, Pan, none other"? Another!
By this you tell me all my joy is sped? Dead!
Say his cursèd name that stole my love that throve! Love!
What shall he do that loved, that loved as I? Die!

Naiads:
 Come, ye sorrowful, and steep
 Your tired brows in a nectarous sleep:
 For our kisses Iightlier run
 Than the traceries of the sun
 By the lolling water cast
 Up grey precipices vast.
 Lifting smooth, and warm and steep
 Out of the palely shimmering deep.

Fauns:
 I know a spot
 Where, to the sound of water sighing,
 The Naiads sing hushedly.

Naiads:
 Come, ye sorrowful, and take
 Kisses that are but half awake:
 For here are eyes O softer far
 Than the blossom of the star
 Upon the mothy twilit waters;
 And here are mouths whose gentle laughters
 Are but the echoes of the deep
 Laughing and murmuring in its sleep.

Fauns:
 I will repose
 Upon its banks and to the spring
 An answer make.

Naiads:
 But if ye sons of Sorrow come
 Only wishing to be numb:
 Our eyes are sad as bluebell posies
 Our breasts are soft as silken roses,
 And our hands are tenderer
 Than the breaths that scarce can stir
 The sunlit eglantine that is
 Murmurous with hidden bees.

Fauns:
 Your deeps hold dreams
 Lovelier than sleep.

Naiad: 
 Come, ye sorrowful, for here
 No voices sound but soft and clear
 Of mouths as lorn as is the rose
 That under water doth disclose,
 Amid her crimson petals torn,
 A heart as golden as the morn;
 And here are tresses languorous
 As weeds wander over us.
 And brows as holy and as bland
 As the honey-coloured sand
 Lying sun-entranced below
 The lazy water's limpid flow:
 Come, ye sorrowful, come!

Fauns:
 Sweet watervoices! Now must I
 Unto your sorrowings reply.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols (1893 - 1944) [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 Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, Sir (1891 - 1975), "Pan and Echo – The naiads' music", op. 46 no. 4, F. 33 no. 4 (1928) [solo voice, chorus, flute, timpani and strings], from Pastoral 'Lie strewn the white flocks', no. 4. [
     text verified 1 time
    ]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2010-12-31
Line count: 62
Word count: 341

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