Ralph Vaughan Williams: Songs of Travel (The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)

Songs of Travel and other verses

Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

GER

ITA

ITA


Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams,
Beauty awake from rest!
Let Beauty awake
For Beauty's sake
In the hour when the birds awake in the brake
And the stars are bright in the west!

Let Beauty awake in the eve from the slumber of day,
Awake in the crimson eve!
In the day's dusk end
When the shades ascend,
Let her wake to the kiss of a tender friend,
To render again and receive!

3. The roadside fire

Language: English
Translation(s): ITA ITA GER

Authorship

Songs of Travel and other verses

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Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

ITA

ITA

GER


I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night,
I will make a palace fit for you and me
Of green days in forests, and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom;
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white
In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

Note: first published in Pall Mall Gazette, January 1895

4. Youth and love

Language: English
Translation(s): ITA ITA GER

Authorship

Songs of Travel and other verses

Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

ITA

ITA

GER


To the heart of youth the world is a highwayside.
Passing for ever, he fares; and on either hand,
Deep in the gardens golden pavilions hide,
Nestle in orchard bloom, and far on the level land
Call him with lighted lamp in the eventide.

Thick as stars at night when the moon is down,
Pleasures assail him. He to his nobler fate
Fares; and but waves a hand as he passes on,
Cries but a wayside word to her at the garden gate,
Sings but a boyish stave and his face is gone.

Gerard Graham Peel may have used this text for his setting Youth and Love

5. In dreams

Language: English
Translation(s): GER ITA ITA

Authorship

Songs of Travel and other verses

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Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

GER

ITA

ITA


In dreams unhappy, I behold you stand
As heretofore:
The unremember'd tokens in your hand
Avail no more.

No more the morning glow, no more the grace,
Enshrines, endears.
Cold beats the light of time upon your face
And shows your tears.

He came and went. Perchance you wept awhile
And then forgot.
Ah me! but he that left you with a smile
Forgets you not.

6. The infinite shining heavens

Language: English
Translation(s): ITA ITA

Authorship

Songs of Travel and other verses

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Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

ITA

ITA


The infinite shining heavens
Rose, and I saw in the night
Uncountable angel stars
Showering sorrow and light.

I saw them distant as heaven,
Dumb and shining and dead,
And the idle stars of the night
Were dearer to me than bread.

Night after night in my sorrow
The stars [stood]¹ over the sea,
Till lo! I looked in the dusk
And a star had come down to me.

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Vaughan Williams: "looked"

7. Whither must I wander?

Language: English
Translation(s): ITA ITA GER

Authorship

Songs of Travel and other verses

Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

ITA

ITA

GER


Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.
Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather:
Thick drives the rain and my roof is in the dust.
Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree,
The true word of welcome was spoken in the door -
Dear days of old with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.

Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;
Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.
Now when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,
The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.

Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moorfowl,
Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers;
Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley,
Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours.
Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood -
Fair shine the day on the house with open door;
Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney -
But I go for ever and come again no more.

First published in Scots Observer, January 1889

8. Bright is the ring of words

Language: English
Translation(s): HUN ITA ITA

Authorship

Songs of Travel and other verses

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Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

HUN

Hungarian

ITA

ITA


Bright is the ring of words
When the right man rings them,
Fair the fall of songs
When the singer sings them,
Still [they are]¹ carolled and said -
On wings they are carried -
After the singer is dead
And the maker buried.

Low as the singer lies
In the field of heather,
Songs of his fashion bring
The swains together.
And when the west is red 
With the sunset embers,
The lover lingers and sings
And the maid remembers.

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Warlock: "are they"

9. I have trod the upward and the downward slope

Language: English
Translation(s): ITA ITA

Authorship

Songs of Travel and other verses

Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

ITA

ITA