Dream Land

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.

by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) , under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyn, "Dream Land"

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

by Alexander von Fielitz (1860-1930) , "Dream Land", published 1898 [voice and piano], from Two Songs
by Miriam Beatrice Hyde (1913-) , "Dream Land", 1933. [soprano and piano or orchestra]
by Haydn Mulholland , "Dream Land", published 1898. [SATB a cappella]
by Charles L. Naylor , "Where sunless rivers weep", published 1892. [four-part men's chorus a cappella]
by Thomas Pasatieri (1945-) , "Dream Land"
by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) , "Dreamland", 1898?, published 1906. [voice and piano]
by Ernest Walker (1870-1949) , "Dream Land", op. 12 [voice and piano], from Six Songs
by (Hubert) Leslie Woodgate (1902-1961) , "The charmed sleep", published 1925 [voice and piano], from Autumn Twilight

Date added to the website: 2007-09-29.

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Classical Vocal Repertoire