No coward soul is mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere
I see Heaven's glories shine
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear

O God within my breast
Almighty, ever-present Deity
Life that in me has rest
As I, Undying Life, have power in Thee

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,
Worthless as withered weeds
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by thine infinity
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality

With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though Earth and Man were gone
And suns and universes ceased to be
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since Thou are Being and Breath,
And what THOU art may never be destroyed.

by Emily Brontë (1818-1848) , from Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, published 1850

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

by Ina Boyle (1889-1967) , "No coward soul is mine", 1953, first performed 1960. [alto, strings]
by Joseph Henry Dixon , "No coward soul is mine" [voice, piano]
by Celius Dougherty (1902-1986) , "No coward soul is mine", 1940-50, first performed 1951.
by Terry Fisk , no title, published 2002 [voice, piano], from Wuthering Heights, no. 51.
by John Joubert (1927-) , "Immortality", published 1971 [high voice and piano], from Six Poems of Emily Brontë, no. ?
by Lothar Klein (1932-) , "The Farewell", 1966 [high voice and viola], from Laments from Gondal, no. ?
by Joan Littlejohn (1937-) , "No coward soul is mine", 1967-71, first performed 1972 [mezzo-soprano, unaccompanied], from The Heights of Haworth, no. ?
by John Mitchell (1941-) , "No coward soul is mine", op. 24 no. 15 (1977), from The Earth, the Wind, and the Sky, no. 15.
by Geoffrey Turton Shaw (1879-1943) , "No coward soul is mine", published 1925 [hymn: unison voices, organ or piano], from Songs of Praise, no. ?, note: tune is entitled "Glynthorpe"
by Ronald Stevenson (1928-) , "No coward soul is mine", published 1969. [SSAA, harp or piano]
by Peter Andrew Tranchell (1922-) , "No coward soul is mine", 1952, first performed 1953 [baritone, SSA semichorus, SATB with virtuoso parts for harpsichord, piano], from This Sorry Scheme of Things, no. ?

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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