Song Cycle by Stephen Chatman (1950-)

1. There is sweet music here

Authorship

by Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) , no title, from Poems, in The Lotos-Eaters, Choric Song no. 1, published 1832

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There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

2. Song of the laughing green woods

Authorship

by William Blake (1757-1827) , "Laughing song", from Songs of Innocence and Experience, in Songs of Innocence, no. 10, published 1789

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

RUS Russian [singable] (Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov)

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it; 

When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene;
When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing "Ha ha he!"

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread:
Come live, and be merry, and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of "Ha ha he!"

3. Music, when soft voices die

Authorship

by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) , "To ----", from Posthumous Poems, published 1824

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

GER German (Martin Stock)

Music, when soft voices die,	
Vibrates in the memory -
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

4. Piping down the valleys wild

Authorship

by William Blake (1757-1827) , "Introduction", from Songs of Innocence and Experience, in Songs of Innocence, no. 1, published 1789

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

RUS Russian [singable] (Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov)

Piping down the valleys wild,
  Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
  And he laughing said to me:

"Pipe a song about a lamb."
  So I piped with merry chear.
"Piper, pipe that song again."
  So I piped: he wept to hear.

"Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
  Sing thy songs of happy chear."
So I sang the same again,
  While he wept with joy to hear.

"Piper, sit thee down and write
  In a book, that all may read."
So he vanished from my sight;
  And I pluck'd a hollow reed.

And I made a rural pen,
  And I stain'd the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
  Every child may joy to hear.

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