Roger Quilter
Love’s Philosophy
Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the River
And the Rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle.
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me?
Benjamin Britten
The Ash Grove
Poem by Anonymous
Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander,
When twilight is fading, I pensively rove,
Or at the bright noontide in solitude wander
Amid the dark shades of the lonely Ash-grove.
’Twas there while the blackbird was joyfully singing,
I first met my dear one, the joy of my heart;
Around us for gladness the bluebells were ringing,
Ah! then little thought I how soon we should part.
Still glows the bright sunshine o’er valley and mountain,
Still warbles the blackbird his note from the tree,
Still trembles the moonbeam on streamlet and fountain;
But what are the beauties of nature to me?
With sorrow, deep sorrow, my bosom is laden,
All day I go mourning in search of my love.
Ye echoes, O tell me, where is the sweet maiden?
She sleeps ’neath the green turf down by the Ash-grove.
Vaughan Williams
Silent Noon
Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, -
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour glass.
Deep in the sunsearched growths the dragonfly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:
So this winged hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.
Lili Boulanger
Reflets
Reflections
Poem by Maurice Maeterlinck
Translation by Richard Stokes
Sous l'eau du songe qui s'élève
Beneath the water of the dream that rises,
Mon âme a peur, mon âme a peur.
My soul is afraid, my soul is afraid.
Et la lune luit dans mon coeur
And the moon shines into my heart
Plongé dans les sources du rêve !
That is bathed in the dream’s source!
Sous l'ennui morne des roseaux.
Beneath the sad tedium of the reeds,
Seul les reflets profonds des choses,
Only the deep reflection of things,
Des lys, des palmes et des roses
Of lilies, palms and roses,
Pleurent encore au fond des eaux.
Still weep on the water’s bed.
Les fleurs s'effeuillent une à une
One by one the flowers shed their leaves
Sur le reflet du firmament.
Upon the firmament’s reflection
Pour descendre, éternellement
To descend, eternally,
Sous l'eau du songe et dans la lune.
Beneath the dream’s water and into the moon.
Isabelle Aboulker
Tenir
Holding
Poem by Eugène Guillevic
Translation by Thomas Adès
Tout ce qu’on a tenu
All that we once have held
Dans ses mains réunies:
In hands united close:
Le caillou, l’herbe sèche,
Little stones, wilted grasses,
L’insecte qui vivra,
The insect that will live,
Pour leur parler un peu,
To speak to them a while,
Pour donner amitié
To bestow friendship
À soi-même, à cela
With our own selves,
Qu’on avait dans les paumes,
On whatever our palms were holding,
Que l’on voulait garder
That we desired to keep,
Pour s’en aller ensemble
With which to journey on,
Au long de ce moment
Along this point in time
Qui n’en finissait pas.
Which never seemed to end.
Tout ce qu’on a tenu
All that we once have held
Dans ses mains rassemblées
In hands assembled close:
Le sable, des pétales,
The sand grains, the petals,
La feuille, une autre main,
A leaf, another hand,
Ce qui pesait longtemps,
That which weighed heavily,
Qui ne pouvait peser,
That which could never weigh,
Le rayon de lumière,
The bright shaft of the sunlight,
La puissance du vent,
The power of the wind,
On aura tout tenu
We will have held all this
Dans les mains rapprochées.
In our hands joining close.
Claude Debussy
Beau soir
Beautiful Evening
Poem by Paul Bourget
Translation by Richard Stokes
Lorsque au soleil couchant les rivières sont roses,
When at sunset the rivers are pink
Et qu’un tiède frisson court sur les champs de blé,
And a warm breeze ripples the fields of wheat,
Un conseil d’être heureux semble sortir des choses
All things seem to advise content -
Et monter vers le cœur troublé;
And rise toward the troubled heart;
Un conseil de goûter le charme d’être au monde
Advise us to savour the gift of life,
Cependant qu’on est jeune et que le soir est beau,
While we are young and the evening fair,
Car nous nous en allons, comme s’en va cette onde:
For our life slips by, as that river does:
Elle à la mer—nous au tombeau!
It to the sea - we to the tomb
Gustav Mahler
Urlicht
Primordial Light
Poem by Anonymous
Translation by Richard Stokes
Der Mensch liegt in grösster Not,
Man lies in direst need,
Der Mensch liegt in grösster Pein,
Man lies in direst pain,
Je lieber möcht' ich im Himmel sein.
I would rather be in heaven.
Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg,
I then came upon a broad path,
Da kam ein Engellein und wollt mich abweisen,
An angel came and sought to turn me back,
Ach nein ich liess mich nicht abweisen.
Ah no! I refused to be turned away.
Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott,
I am from God and to God I will return,
Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen geben,
Dear God will give me a light,
Wird leuchten mir bis an das ewig selig Leben.
Will light my way to eternal blessed life.
Richard Wagner
Weiche, Wotan! Weiche!
Yield, Wotan! Yield!
From Das Rheingold
Translation by Andrew Porter
Weiche, Wotan, weiche!
Yield, Wotan, yield!
Flieh des Ringes Fluch!
Escape from the ring’s curse.
Rettungslos dunklem Verderben
To dark destruction irredeemably
Weiht dich sein Gewinn.
Its possession dooms you.
Wie alles war, weiss ich;
I know whatever was;
Wie alles wird, wie alles sein wird,
whatever is, whatever shall be
Seh’ ich auch:
I also see:
Der ew’gen Welt Ur-Wala,
The eternal world’s first ancestress,
Erda, mahnt deinen Mut. Drei der Töchter,
Erda, warns you. My womb bore three daughters,
Ur-erschaffne, gebar mein Schoß:
conceived before the start of time;
Was ich sehe, sagen dir nächtlich die Nornen.
What I see, the Norns nightly tell you.
Doch höchste Gefahr führt mich heut selbst zu dir her.
But direst danger today brings me in person to you.
Höre! Höre! Höre!
Hear me! Hear me! Hear me!
Alles, was ist, endet.
All that is shall come to an end.
Ein düstrer Tag dämmert den Göttern:
A dark day dawns for the gods:
Dir rat’ ich, meide den Ring!
I charge you, shun the ring!
Edward Elgar
Sea Pictures
Sea Slumber Song
Poem by Roden Noel
Sea birds are asleep,
The world forgets to weep,
Sea murmurs her soft slumber-song
On the shadowy sand
Of this elfin land;
‘I, the Mother mild,
Hush thee, oh my child,
Forget the voices wild!
Isles in elfin light
Dream, the rocks and caves,
Lulled by whispering waves,
Veil their marbles bright.
Foam glimmers faintly white
Upon the shelly sand
Of this elfin land;
Sea-sound, like violins,
To slumber woos and wins,
I murmur my soft slumber-song,
Leave woes, and wails, and sins.
Ocean’s shadowy might
Breathes good night,
Good night.
In Haven (Capri)
Poem by Caroline Alice Elgar
Closely let me hold thy hand,
Storms are sweeping sea and land;
Love alone will stand.
Closely cling, for waves beat fast,
Foam-flakes cloud the hurrying blast;
Love alone will last.
Kiss my lips, and softly say:
‘Joy, sea-swept, may fade to-day;
Love alone will stay.’
Sabbath Morning at Sea
Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Brown
The ship went on with solemn face;
To meet the darkness on the deep,
The solemn ship went onward.
I bowed down weary in the place;
For parting tears and present sleep
Had weighed mine eyelids downward.
The new sight, the new wondrous sight!
The waters around me, turbulent,
The skies, impassive o’er me,
Calm in a moonless, sunless light,
As glorified by even the intent
Of holding the day glory!
Love me, sweet friends, this sabbath day.
The sea sings round me while ye roll
Afar the hymn, unaltered,
And kneel, where once I knelt to pray,
And bless me deeper in your soul
Because your voice has faltered.
And though this sabbath comes to me
Without the stolèd minister,
And chanting congregation,
God’s Spirit shall give comfort.
He who brooded soft on waters drear,
Creator on creation.
He shall assist me to look higher,
Where keep the saints, with harp and song,
An endless sabbath morning,
And, on that sea commixed with fire.
Oft drop their eyelids raised too long
To the full Godhead’s burning.
Where Corals Lie
Poem by Richard Garnett
The deeps have music soft and low
When winds awake the airy spry,
It lures me, lures me on to go
And see the land where corals lie.
The land, the land, where corals lie.
By mount and mead, by lawn and rill,
When night is deep, and moon is high,
That music seeks and finds me still,
And tells me where the corals lie.
And tells me where the corals lie.
Yes, press my eyelids close, 'tis well,
Yes, press my eyelids close, 'tis well,
But far the rapid fancies fly
To rolling worlds of wave and shell,
And all the land where corals lie.
Thy lips are like a sunset glow,
Thy smile is like a morning sky,
Yet leave me, leave me, let me go
And see the land where corals lie.
The land, the land, where corals lie.
The Swimmer
Poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
With short, sharp, violent lights made vivid,
To southward far as the sight can roam,
Only the swirl of the surges livid,
The seas that climb and the surfs that comb.
Only the crag and the cliff to nor’ward,
And the rocks receding, and reefs flung forward,
Waifs wreck’d seaward and wasted shoreward,
On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.
A grim, grey coast and a seaboard ghastly,
And shores trod seldom by feet of men—
Where the batter’d hull and the broken mast lie,
They have lain embedded these long years ten.
Love! when we wandered here together,
Hand in hand through the sparkling weather,
From the heights and hollows of fern and heather.
God surely loved us a little then.
The skies were fairer and shores were firmer—
The blue sea over the bright sand roll’d;
Babble and prattle, and ripple and murmur,
Sheen of silver and glamour of gold.
So, girt with tempest and wing’d with thunder
And clad with lightning and shod with sleet,
And strong winds treading the swift waves under
The flying rollers with frothy feet
One gleam like a bloodshot sword-blade swims on
The sky line, staining the green gulf crimson,
A death-stroke fiercely dealt by a dim sun
That strikes through his stormy winding sheet.
0 brave white horses! you gather and gallop,
The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins;
Now the stoutest ship were the frailest shallop
In your hollow backs, on your high-arched manes.
I would ride as never a man has ridden
In your sleepy, swirling surges hidden;
To gulfs foreshadow’d through strifes forbidden,
Where no light wearies and no love wanes.
Richard Strauss
Morgen!
Tomorrow!
Poem by John Henry Mackay
Translation by Richard Stokes
Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen
And tomorrow the sun will shine again
Und auf dem Wege, den ich gehen werde,
And on the path that I shall take,
Wird uns, die Glücklichen, sie wieder einen
It will unite us, happy ones, again,
Inmitten dieser sonnenatmenden Erde ...
Amid this same sun-breathing earth ...
Und zu dem Strand, dem weiten, wogenblauen,
And to the shore, broad, blue-waved,
Werden wir still und langsam niedersteigen,
We shall quietly and slowly descend,
Stumm werden wir uns in die Augen schauen,
Speechless we shall gaze into each other’s eyes,
Und auf uns sinkt des Glückes stummes Schweigen.
And the speechless silence of bliss shall fall on us.