O Take him gently from the Pile,
And lay him here to rest, 
And I will scorch for him [the]1 while; 
If he must burn, then burn him in my Breast,
For there is Fire, there is [shame]2
Enough to set the World on [flame]3. 

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Cyrus the Great, or, The tragedy of love : as it is acted at the theatre in Little-Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, by His Majesty's Servants by John Banks, printed for Richard Bentley at the Post-Office in Russel-Street, Covent-Garden, London 1696, Act 4, page 41. The first of two songs.

¹ Eccles: "a"
² Eccles: "flame"
³ Eccles: "fire"

Text Authorship:

• by John Banks (1650 - 1706), "Song", appears in Cyrus the Great, or, The tragedy of love, Richard Bentley, Covent-Garden, London, first published 1696 [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):

[ None yet in the database ]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:

• by John Eccles (1668 - 1735), "Oh! Take him gently", 1695, from the incidental music to Cyrus the Great
  • View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
    

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , John Versmoren , Iain Sneddon [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 6
Word count: 49