John Ireland: Songs of a Wayfarer (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Memory, hither come
  And tune your merry notes;
And while upon the wind
  Your music floats,

I'll pore upon the stream,
  Where sighing lovers dream,
And fish for fancies as they pass
  Within the watery glass.

I'll drink of the clear stream,
  And hear the linnet's song,
And there I'll lie and dream
  The day along;

And when night comes I'll go
  To places fit for woe,
Walking along the darkened valley,
  With silent melancholy.

Input by Ted Perry

2. When daffodils begin to peer

Language: English

Authorship

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

A Winter's Tale

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 When daffodils begin to peer -
 	With heigh! The doxy over the dale -
 Why, then comes the sweet o' the year;
 	For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

 The white sheet bleaching on the hedge -
 	With heigh! The sweet birds, O how they sing!
 Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
	For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

 The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,
 	With heigh! with heigh! The thrush and the jay,
 Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
 	While we lie tumbling in the hay.

[ But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
 	The pale moon shines by night:
 And when I wander here and there,
	I then do most go right.

 Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
 	And merrily hent the stile-a:
 A merry heart goes all the day,
	Your sad tires in a mile-a. ]¹

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¹ Not set by Quilter.

Input by Ted Perry

3. English May

Language: English

Authorship

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti


 Would God your health were as this month of May
	Should be, were this not England, - and your face
	Abroad, to give the gracious sunshine grace
 And laugh beneath the budding hawthorn-spray.
 But here the hedgerows pine from green to grey
	While yet May's lyre is tuning, and her song
	Is weak in shade that should in sun be strong;
 And your pulse springs not to so faint a lay.

 If in my life be breath of Italy,
	Would God that I might yield it all to you!
	So, when such grafted warmth had burgeoned through
 The languor of your Maytime's hawthorn-tree,
 My spirit at rest should walk unseen and see
	The garland of your beauty bloom anew.

Input by Ted Perry

4. I was not sorrowful (Spleen)

Language: English

Authorship

Ernest Dowson (1867-1900)

Verses

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I was not sorrowful, I could not weep,
And all my memories were put to sleep.

I watched the river grow more white and strange,
All day till evening I watched it change.

All day till evening I watched the rain
Beat wearily upon the window pane

I was not sorrowful, but only tired
Of everything that ever I desired.

Her lips, her eyes, all day became to me
The shadow of a shadow utterly.

All day mine hunger for her heart became
Oblivion, until the evening came,

And left me sorrowful, inclined to weep,
With all my memories that could not sleep.

Input by Ted Perry

5. I will walk on the earth

Language: English

Authorship

James Vila Blake (1842-1925)


I will walk on the earth
Up to the top o' the trees,
Where sway the bird and the breeze,
And Song's wild eyes
Look to the skies:
Up to the top o' the trees,
Up to the top o' the trees!

Up to the peaks o' the cloud,
Where Echo's suburbs crowd
The lightning's flash
And thund'rous crash:
Up to the peaks o' the cloud,
Up to the peaks o' the cloud!

Nay, I will walk on the earth;
My love them all is worth:
In Love I see
All of them be,
And more - more -
I will walk on the earth,
I will walk on the earth!

Input by Ted Perry