The Garden of Proserpine (Huub de Lange)
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- Editor: Huub de Lange (submitted 2010-10-15). Score information: A4, 19 pages Copyright: Personal
- Edition notes: Full score including piano part.
General Information
Title: The Garden of Proserpine
Composer: Huub de Lange
Lyricist: Algernon Charles Swinburne
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong
Language: English
Instruments: Piano
First published: 2010
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.
(The original poems consists of twelve strophes. In this setting the first four have been used.)