Possession (Carnie, set by E. Smyth) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


There bloomed at my cottage door
A rose with a heart scented sweet,
O so lovely and fair that I plucked it one day,
Laid it over my own heart's swift beat.
In a moment its petals were shed:
Just a tiny white mound at my feet.

There came to my lonely soul
The friend I had waited for long,
And the deep chilly silence lay stricken and dead.
Pierc'd to death by our love and our song,
And I thought of the bird and the flow'r
And my soul in its knowledge grew strong.

There flew through my casements low
A linnet that richly could sing.
Sang so thrillingly sweet I could not let it go
But must cage it, the wild happy thing.
But it pined in the cage I had made,
Not a note to my chamber would bring.

Go out when thou wilt, O friend;
Sing thy song, roam the world glad and free.
By the holding I lose; by the giving I gain,
And the gods cannot take thee from me.
For a song and scent on the wind
Shall drift in thro' the doorway from thee.

Authorship

Ethel Carnie Holdsworth (1886-1962)

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

Ethel Mary Smyth, Dame (1858-1944)

Three songs

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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