The Indian Maid (John Liptrot Hatton)
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- Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-10-25). Score information: Letter, 16 pages, 612 kB Copyright: Personal
- Edition notes:
- Editor: James Gibb (submitted 2019-04-13). Score information: A4, 10 pages, 140 kB Copyright: CPDL
- Edition notes:
General Information
Title: The Indian Maid
Composer: John Liptrot Hatton
Lyricist: Camilla Dufour Crosland
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong
Language: English
Instruments: Keyboard
First published: 1869 in Novello Part-Song Book (2nd Series), Vol. 1, no. 60
Description: Six Choral Songs (1864), No.5
The source has the following note: "According to a well-known superstition, the Hindoo maiden floats her lamp upon the Ganges and, murmuring a musical incantation, draws an augury of her destiny from the fate of the light."
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
1 A dusky maid, with ebon hair,
Sits by the Ganges river;
With hope and fear her bosom heaves,
Her parted lips they quiver.
A finer light is in her eye,
Than that whose fitful shining
Now thrills her soul with sudden joy,
Now sets it to repining!
And as the river flows along,
She softly sings her mystic song.
2 For on the Ganges' sacred stream,
Her fateful lamp is floating,
And as it flames, or as it dies,
Shall be her lover's doating.
A thousand stars are in the sky,
Like gems on hidden fingers:
But eye unused to upward gaze,
On lurid light still lingers!
And as the river flows along,
She softly sings her mystic song.
3 Oh, not for us, with idle thought,
To scorn the Indian maiden;
We too may watch our earthen lamps,
With lotus wreath'd and laden!
But when, through tears, we see them quench'd,
And round us sorrows cluster,
'Tis well the beacon stars glow on,
With heav'n-kindled lustre!
And well Life's river flowing by,
Still flows beneath a starry sky,