English May (Rossetti, set by J. Ireland) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


 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

Authorship

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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

John Ireland (1879-1962)

Songs of a Wayfarer

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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