Her voice (Wilde, set by J. Carpenter) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


The wild bee reels from bough to bough
  With his furry coat and his gauzy wing.
Now in a lily-cup, and now
  Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
          In his wandering;
Sit closer love: it was here I trow
          I made that vow,
  
Swore that two lives should be like one
  As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
As long as the sunflower sought the sun, --
  It shall be, I said, for eternity
          'Twixt you and me!
Dear friend, those times are over and done,
          Love's web is spun.
  
Look upward where the poplar trees
  Sway and sway in the summer air,
Here in the valley never a breeze
  Scatters the thistledown, but there
          Great winds blow fair
From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,
          And the wave-lashed leas.
  
Look upward where the white gull screams,
  What does it see that we do not see?
Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams
  On some outward voyaging argosy, --
          Ah! can it be
We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!
          How sad it seems.
  
Sweet, there is nothing left to say
  But this, that love is never lost,
Keen winter stabs the breasts of May
  Whose crimson roses burst his frost,
          Ships tempest-tossed
Will find a harbour in some bay,
          And so we may.
  
And there is nothing left to do
  But to kiss once again, and part,
Nay, there is nothing we should rue,
  I have my beauty, -- you your Art,
          Nay, do not start,
One world was not enough for two
          Like me and you.

Authorship

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Poems

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

John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951)

Date added to the website: 2008-09-18.

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