Old songs (Stevenson, set by P. Wishart) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Brave lads in olden musical centuries
Sang, night by night, adorable choruses,
   Sat late by alehouse doors in April
   Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising.

Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises,
Flush-faced they play'd with old polysyllables
   Spring scents inspired, old wine diluted:
   Love and Apollo were there to chorus.

Now these, the songs, remain to eternity,
Those, only those, the bountiful choristers
   Gone -- those are gone, those unremember'd
   Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.

So man himself appears and evanishes,
So smiles and goes; as wanderers halting at
   Some green-embower'd house, play their music,
   Play and are gone on the windy highway.

Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory
Long after they departed eternally,
   Forth-faring tow'rd far mountain summits,
   Cities of men or the sounding Ocean.

Youth sang the song in years immemorial:
Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful;
   Bird-haunted green tree-tops in springtime
   Heard, and were pleased by the voice of singing.

Youth goes and leaves behind him a prodigy -- 
Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian
   Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways,
   Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.

Authorship

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson to his Family and Friends

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

Peter Wishart (1921-1984)

Songs and Satires

Date added to the website: 2008-11-29.

Gentle Reminder

This project is not funded. If you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your gift is greatly appreciated!
- Emily

I also have a wishlist at Amazon.ca.