Song Cycle by Virgil Garnett Thomson (1896-1989)

1. Follow your saint

Authorship

by Thomas Campion (1567-1620)

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Follow your saint follow with accents sweet,
Haste you sad noates fall at her flying feete,
There wrapt in cloud of sorrow pitie move,
And tell the ravisher of my soule, I perish for her love.
But if she scorns my never ceasing paine,
Then burst with sighing in her sight, and nere returne againe.

All that I soong still to her praise did tend,
Still she was first, still she my sings did end,
Yet she my love, and Musicke both does flie,
The Musicke that her Eccho is, and bauties simpathies;
Then let my Noates pursue her scornfull flight,
It shall suffice, that thex were breath'd and dyed for her delight.

2. There is a garden in her face

Authorship

by Thomas Campion (1567-1620)

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

DUT Dutch (Lidy van Noordenburg)

There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heav'nly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.
There cherries grow, which none may buy
Till "Cherry ripe", themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row;
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rosebuds filled with snow.
Yet them no peer nor prince can buy
Till "Cherry ripe", themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still;
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh
Till "Cherry ripe", themselves do cry.

3. Rose cheek'd Laura, come!

Authorship

by Thomas Campion (1567-1620)

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Rose cheek'd Laura, come!
Sing thou sweetly with thy beauty's silent music,
either other Sweetly gracing.
Lovely forms do flow
From consent divinely framed,
Heav'n is music, and thy beauty's Birth is heav'nly.
These dull notes we sing
Discords need for help to grace them;
Only beauty purely loving
Knows no discord,
But still moves delight,
Like clear springs renewed by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in themselves eternal.

4. Follow thy fair sun

Authorship

by Thomas Campion (1567-1620)

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Followe thy faire sunne unhappy shaddowe
Though thou be blacke as night
And she made all of light,
Yet follow thy faire sunne unhappie shaddowe.

Follow her whose light thy light depriveth,
Though here thou liv'st disgrac't,
And she in heaven is plac't,
Yer lollow her whose light the world reviveth.

Follow those pure beames whose beautie burneth
That so have scorched thee,
As thou still blacke must bee,
Til her kind beames thy black to brightness turneth.

Follow her while yet her glorie shineth:
There comes a luckless night,
That will dim all light,
And this the black unhappie shade devineth.

Follow still since so thy fates ordained,
The sunne must have his shade,
Till both at once do fade,
The sun still [ap]prov'd the shadow still disdained.

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