Anon Thomas Morley (1557–1602)
Pelham Humphrey (1647–1674) Henry Purcell (1659–1695)
Thomas Arne (1710–1778) Thomas Linley (1756–1778) Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) Richard Strauss (1864–1949) Franz Schubert (1797–1828) Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) Hector Berlioz (1803–1869)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) Edward German (1862–1936) Duke Ellington (1899–1974) & Billy Strayhorn (1915–1967) Serge Prokofiev (1891–1953) Michael Tippett (1905–1998)
Michael Nyman (b.1944) William Walton (1902–1983)
Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Thou soft flowing Avon, by the silver stream
Of things more than mortal thy Shakespeare would dream
The fairies by moonlight dance round the green bed
For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his head
The love-stricken maiden, the sighing young swain
They rove without danger, and sigh without pain
The fairies by moonlight dance round the green bed
For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his head.
Let fancy once again on Britain smile,
Yet choose some fav'rite son again
O'er all thy boundless realms to reign.
Oh, give another Shakespeare to our isle
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek...;
She sat, like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
1
How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass green turf,
At his heels a stone.
2
White his shroud as the mountain snow,
Larded with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers.
3
To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
4
They bore him barefaced on the bier,
And in his grave rained many a tear.
You must sing 'A-down a-down',
And you 'Call him 'a-down-a',
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy
5
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead,
Go to thy deathbed.
as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll.
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan,
God ha' mercy on his soul.
All
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Isobel Baillie
Of sweet harmony
Heddle Nash
Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
Frank Titterton
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
All
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange:
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.
Ding-dong!
Hark! now I hear them,
Ding-dong, bell!
Reason is nothing.
We bicker and brawl
Each mortal to each other.
All
caged! Irrate!
Who will laugh last of all
Will laugh the most.