Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years. 

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose [wakening]1 should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where [thirsting]2 longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more. 

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!

by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) , "Echo", 1854

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by Johan Backer-Lunde (1874-1958) , "Echo", op. 38 no. 3.
by Sir Ernest Bullock (1890-1979) , "Echo", published 1954.
by Larry A. Christiansen (1941-) , "Echo", published 1964. [satb, a cappella]
by Frederick Shepherd Converse (1871-1940) , "Echo"
by Jean Coulthard (1908-2000) , "Echo", stanzas 1,3 [voice and piano], from Christina Songs, no. 3.
by Norman Dello Joio (1913-) , "Come to me, my love", published 1973. [satb,pf]
by Richard Bruce Faith (1926-) , "Echo"
by Edward C. Harris (1899-?) , "Echo"
by William Hawley (1950-) , "Echo", first performed 1995 [SSAATTBB], from Four Reveries, no. 1.
by Gustav Holst (1874-1934) , "Come to me", 1903. [satb, a cappella]
by Bruno Siegfried Huhn (1871-1950) , "Echo"
by Lori Laitman (1955-) , "Echo"
by Theophile-Jules-Henri Marzials (1850-1920) , "Come back in dreams", published 1908.
by John Musto (1954-) , "Echo", from Recuerdo, no. 1.
by Thomas Pasatieri (1945-) , "Echo", 2003 [voice and piano], from A rustling of angels, no. 10.
by Frederick Piket (1903-1974) , "Echo", published 1957 [ssaa, a cappella], from The Speaking Silence
by Harold William Rhodes (1889-1956) , "Echo", published 1925.
by Howard Rovics (1936-) , "Echo", 1964-5.
by John C. Sacco (1905-1987) , "Echo", published 1975.
by John Patrick Somers-Cocks (1907-1995) , "Echo", 1959.
by Lord Henry (Richard Charles) Somerset (1849-1932) , "Echo", published 1895.
by Rudolph Werther (1896-?) , "Echo"
by William Wolstenholme (1865-1931) , "Echo", first performed 1903.
by Charles Wood (1866-1926) , "Echo", 1866.
by Judith Lang Zaimont , "Entreaty", from Greyed Sonnets: Five Serious Songs, no. 5.
by Douglas William Alfred Zanders (1918-) , "Echo", 1952.

GER German (Bertram Kottmann)

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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