Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright

Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:
Thy root is ever, ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

by George Herbert (1593-1633)

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

by Barney Childs , "Virtue"
by Olivier Greif (1950-2000) , "Vertue", op. 310 no. 6 (1995) [voice and piano], from Les chants de l'âme, no. 6.
by Michael Head (1900-1976) , "Sweet day! so cool", 1919, published 1921.
by Nick Peros , "Virtue"
by Adam Taylor (1981-) , "Sweet day", op. 28 no. 1 (2003) [SSAA chorus a cappella], from Four Songs of Calm, no. 1.
by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) , "Sweet day", 1896, stanzas 1,3-4.

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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