Song Cycle by Daron Aric Hagen (1961-)

1. Never pain to tell thy love

Authorship

by William Blake (1757-1827) , "Love's secret", 1863

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Never [seek]1 to tell thy love 
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears --
Ah, she doth depart.

Soon as she was gone from me
A traveller came by
Silently, invisibly --
[He took her with a sigh.]2

2. I am not yours

Authorship

by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) , "I am not yours"

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

3. A dream within a dream

Authorship

by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) , "A dream within a dream"

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Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow -
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep - while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

4. Echo's song

Authorship

by Ben Jonson (1572-1637) , from Cynthia's Revels, Act I Scene 2.

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 Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears:
    [Yet slower, yet; O faintly,]1 gentle springs:
 List to the heavy part the music bears,
    Woe weeps out her [division]2 when she sings.
     Droop herbs and flowers,
     Fall grief in showers,
     Our [beauties are]3 not ours;
      [O, I could still,]4
 Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
     [Drop, drop, drop, drop,]5
    Since [nature's]6 pride is, now, a withered daffodil.

5. I am Rose

Authorship

by Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) , no title, from The World Is Round, in There, published 1939, copyright ©

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I am Rose my eyes are blue
 [ ... ]

6. Lost

Authorship

by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) , "Lost", from Chicago Poems, published 1916

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Desolate and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor's breast
And the harbor's eyes.

7. Why did you go?

Authorship

by E. E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings (1894-1962) , no title, from XLI Poems, published 1925

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why did you go
little fourpaws?
you forgot to shut
your big eyes.

where did you go?
like little kittens
are all the leaves
which open in the rain.

little kittens who
are called spring,
is what we stroke
maybe asleep?

do you know?or maybe did
something go away
ever so quietly
when we weren't looking.

8. Since you went away

Authorship

by Kenneth Rexroth (1905-) , copyright ©

a text in Chinese by Shu Chi'siang [text unavailable]

After you were gone
 [ ... ]

9. Thou wouldst be loved

Authorship

by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) , "To F--s S. O--d", 1835, from The Raven and Other Poems, published 1845

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Thou wouldst be loved? -- then let thy heart
     From its present pathway part not!
Being everything which now thou art,
     Be nothing which thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,
     Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
     And love -- a simple duty.

10. Look down, fair moon

Authorship

by Walt Whitman (1819-1892) , "Look down, fair moon", from Leaves of Grass

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Look down, fair moon and bathe this scene,
Pour softly down night's nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple;
On the dead, on their backs, with [their]1 arms toss'd wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon.

11. The mild mother

Authorship

by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist

[--- This text is not currently
in the database but will be added
as soon as we obtain it. ---]

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