Sun of the sleepless

Sun of the sleepless! melancholy star!
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far!
That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to joy remember'd well!
So gleams the past, the light of other days,
Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays;
A nightbeam Sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant - clear - but, oh how cold!

by George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824) , "Sun of the sleepless", from Hebrew Melodies, no. 24, published 1815

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

by Christopher Montague Edmunds (1899-1990) , "Sun of the sleepless", published 1923. [ttbb, a capella]
by Adolph Martin Foerster (1854-1927) , "Sun of the sleepless", op. 64 (Garland of Songs), Heft 2 no. 12 (1906).
by Arthur H. Gutman , "Sun of the sleepless", 1940.
by Otto Luening (1900-1996) , "Sun of the sleepless", published 1941. [ssa, a capella]
by James Nary , "Sun of the sleepless", 1876 [voice and piano], from Lord Byron's Hebrew Melodies, no. ?
by Isaac Nathan (1790-1864) , "Sun of the sleepless", published 1815, from A Selection of Hebrew Melodies No. I, no. 24.
by Samuel Harold Oakley , "Sun of the sleepless", from Song of the Night, no. ?
by Ned Rorem (1923-) , "Sun of the sleepless", published 1969, from Sun.
by Bryceson Treharne (1879-1948) , "Sun of the sleepless", published 1921.
by Thomas Van Dyke Wiesenthal (1790-1833) , "Hymn to the evening star", 1821.

by (Karl) Emil Kauffmann (1836-1909) , "An den Mond", op. 10 (Vier Lieder / 4 Gedichte) no. 1 (1868) [low voice and piano], Stuttgart, Zumsteeg; may be wrong text for this title and incipit ("Schlafloser Augen Leuchte")
by (Jakob Ludwig) Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847) , "Schlafloser Augen Leuchte"

by Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) , "Sonne der Schlummerlosen", 1896, from Vier Gedichte nach Heine, Shakespeare und Lord Byron (1888-1896), no. 3.

by Johann Karl Gottfried Loewe (1796-1869) , "Die Sonne der Schlaflosen", op. 13 (Hebräische Gesänge) no. 6.

by Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) , "Nespjashchikh solnce, grustnaja zvezda", op. 41 no. 1 (1897).

by Robert Alexander Schumann (1810-1856) , "An den Mond", op. 95 (3 Gesänge) no. 2.

by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) , "Sonne des Schlaflosen", NWV. 30 (1865) [voice and piano], fragment

ITA Italian (Ferdinando Albeggiani)

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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Nespjashchikh solnce, grustnaja zvezda

Nespjashchikh solnce, grustnaja zvezda,
kak slezno luch mercajet tvoj vsegda,
kak temnota pri njom jeshchjo temnej,
kak on pokhozh na radost' prezhnikh dnej! 
Tak svetit proshloje nam v zhiznennoj nochi,
no uzh ne grejut nas bessil'nyje luchi,
zvezda minuvshego, ty v gore mne vidna,
vidna, no daleka, svetla, no kholodna.

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Note on Transliteration

by Count Aleksei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1875)

a text in English by George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824) , "Sun of the sleepless", from Hebrew Melodies, no. 24, published 1815 ITA GER

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

by Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) , "Nespjashchikh solnce, grustnaja zvezda", op. 41 no. 1 (1897).

Date added to the website: 2003-11-19.