Mother, I cannot mind my wheel

Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
O, if you feel the pain I feel!
But O, who ever felt as I?

No longer could I doubt him true -
All other men may use deceit;
He always said my eyes were blue,
And often swore my lips were sweet.

by Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) , no title, from Simonidea, published 1860

a text in Greek by Sappho (fl. c610-c580 BCE) [text unavailable]

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

by Howard Barlow (1892-1972) , "Mother, I cannot mind my wheel", published <<1940. [voice and piano]
by Cecil Burleigh (1885-1980) , "Mother, I cannot mind my wheel", copyright © 1944 [soprano or alto and piano], from Fragments from Sappho, no. ?
by John Edmunds (1913-1986) , "Mother, I cannot mind my wheel", 1939, published 1975 [voice and piano], from Hesperides, no. ?
by George Foote (1886-1956) , "Mother, I cannot mind my wheel", published <<1940. [voice and piano]
by Oskar Morawetz (1917-) , "Mother, I cannot mind my wheel", published 1962. [high voice and piano]
by Alexander Paucker (1905-1972) , "Mother, I cannot mind my wheel", published 1965 [voice and piano], under the pseudonym Francis Chagrin
by Ned Rorem (1923-) , "Mother, I cannot mind my wheel", from The Nantucket Songs, no. 6.

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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