We watch’d her breathing (Jacob Leo Kerbusch)

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• (Posted 2023-11-03)  CPDL #76945:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-11-03).   Score information: Letter, 4 pages, 252 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: We watch’d her breathing
Composer: Jacob Leo Kerbusch
Lyricist: Thomas Hood
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1870 Novello, Ewer, and Co.
Description: CHORALE

Original text and translations

English text

The Death-Bed

We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seemed to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied—
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came, dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed—she had
Another morn than ours.