by Alfred Perceval Graves (1846 - 1931)
The poison on the darts
Language: English
As love was busy raising stolen honey to his lips, A bee flew out and poisoned his pretty fingertips. The thief he dropped his booty and, tortured with the pain, Ran sobbing off to Venus of his treatment to complain. “Look, Mother, how I’m wounded by just one little bee.” “What! have you learnt a lesson at last, my lad,” said she, “Perhaps when you’re preparing fresh arrows for our hearts, You’ll be a shade more sparing of the poison on the darts.”
Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir (1852 - 1924), "The poison on the darts", published [1882?] [voice and piano], from the collection Songs of Old Ireland. A Collection of Fifty Irish Melodies Unknown in England, no. 41, arrangement ; London, Boosey & Co. ; dedicated to Johannes Brahms, August 1882 [text verified 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Mike Pearson
This text was added to the website: 2015-04-08
Line count: 8
Word count: 83