Ring out your bells (Ralph Vaughan Williams)

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• (Posted 2023-12-05)  CPDL #77857:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-12-05).   Score information: Letter, 16 pages, 617 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: Ring out your bells
Composer: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Lyricist: Philip Sidney
Number of voices: 5vv   Voicing: SSATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: ca. 1904 Laudy & Co.
Description: 

Original text and translations

English text

Ring out your bells! let mourning shows be spread,
For LOVE is dead.
    All love is dead, infected
    With the plague of deep disdain;
    Worth as nought worth rejected,
    And faith, fair scorn doth gain.
        From so ungrateful fancy,
        From such a female frenzy,
        From them that use men thus,
        Good Lord deliver us!

Let dirige be sung, and trentals rightly read,
For LOVE is dead.
    Sir WRONG his tomb ordaineth,
    My mistress’ marble heart;
    Which epitaph containeth
     “Her eyes were once his dart.”
        From so ungrateful fancy,
        From such a female frenzy,
        From them that use men thus,
        Good Lord deliver us!

Alas, I lie. Rage hath this error bred.
LOVE is not dead.
    LOVE is not dead, but sleepeth
    In her unmatchèd mind:
    Where she his counsel keepeth,
    Till due deserts she find.
        Therefore from so vile fancy,
        To call such wit a frenzy:
        Who love can temper thus,
        Good Lord deliver us!