Sir Granville Ransome Bantock: Dramatic Lyrics Set II (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Out of your whole life give but a moment!
...All of your life that has gone before,
...All to come after it,--so you ignore,
So you make perfect the present; condense,
In a rapture of rage, for perfection's endowment,
Thought and feeling and soul and sense,
Merged in a moment which gives me at last
You around me for once, you beneath me, above me--
Me, sure that, despite of time future, time past,
This tick of life-time's one moment you love me!
How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet,
...The moment eternal--just that and no more--
...When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core,
While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut, and lips meet!

2. Summum bonum

Language: English

Authorship

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Asolando: Fancies and Facts

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	All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, -- wonder, wealth, and -- how far above them --
        Truth that's brighter than gem,
        Trust, that's purer than pearl, --
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe--all were for me
        In the kiss of one girl.

3. A pearl, a girl

Language: English

Authorship

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Asolando: Fancies and Facts

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A simple ring with a single stone,
    To the vulgar eye no stone of price:
Whisper the right word, that alone -- 
    Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice,
And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll)
Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole
    Through the power in a pearl.

A woman ('tis I this time that say)
    With little the world counts worthy praise
Utter the true word -- out and away
    Escapes her soul: I am wrapt in blaze,
Creation's lord, of heaven and earth
Lord whole and sole -- by a minute's birth -- 
    Through the love in a girl!

4. Life in a love

Language: English

Authorship

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Men and Women

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     Escape me?
     Never -
     Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
  So long as the world contains us both,
  Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear -
  It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
  Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed -
But what if I fail of my purpose here?

It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
  To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again, -
  So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound,
  At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
  Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
     I shape me -
     Ever
     Removed!

Input by Ahmed E. Ismail

5. By the fire-side

Language: English

Authorship

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Men and Women


[ ... ]

38. We two stood there with never a third,
  But each by each, as each knew well:
The sights we saw and the sounds we heard,
  The lights and the shades made up a spell
Till the trouble grew and stirred.

39. Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
  And the little less, and what worlds away!
How a sound shall quicken content to bliss,
  Or a breath suspend the blood's best play,
And life be a proof of this!

40. Had she willed it, still had stood the screen
  So slight, so sure, 'twixt my love and her:
I could fix her face with a guard between,
  And find her soul as when friends confer,
Friends -- lovers that might have been.

[ ... ]