The Penguin Book of English Song Read online

  Ease me with death by bidding me goe too.

  O, if it haue let my word worke on me,

  And a iust office on a murderer doe.

  Except4 it be too late to kill me so,

  Being double dead, going and bidding goe.

  PELHAM HUMFREY

  A hymne to God the Father (1688)1

  I

  Wilt thou forgive that sinne2 where I begunne,

  Which is my sin, though it were done before?

  Wilt thou forgive those sinnes, through which I runne,

  And do run still: though still I do deplore?

  When thou hast done, thou hast not done,

  For I have more.3

  II

  Wilt thou forgive that sinne by which I’have wonne

  Others to sinne? and, made my sinne their doore?

  Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I do shunne

  A yeare, or two: but wallowed in, a score?

  When thou hast done, thou hast not done,

  For I have more.

  III

  I have a sinne of feare, that when I have spunne

  My last thread,4 I shall perish on the shore;

  Sweare by thy selfe, that at my death thy sonne

  Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;

  And, having done that, Thou haste done,

  I feare no more.

  (Hilton)

  HAVERGAL BRIAN: from Three Songs, Op. 6 (c.1901–6/1913)

  The message

  Send home my long strayd eyes to mee,

  Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee;

  Yet since there they have learn’d1 such ill,

  Such forc’d fashions2

  And false passions,

  That they be

  Made by thee

  Fit for no good sight, keep them still.

  Send home my harmlesse heart againe,

  Which no unworthy thought could staine;

  But if it be taught by thine

  To make jestings

  Of protestings,

  And crosse3 both

  Word and oath,

  Keepe it, for then ’tis none of mine.

  Yet send me back my heart and eyes,

  That I may know, and see thy lyes,

  And may laugh and joy, when thou

  Art in anguish

  And dost languish

  For some one

  That will none4,

  Or prove as false as thou art now.

  BENJAMIN BRITTEN

  Britten was one of the most literary of all song composers. He would have agreed wholeheartedly with Schumann’s statement in an article on the songs of W. H. Veit: ‘Weshalb also nach mittelmäßigen Gedichten greifen, was sich immer an der Musik rächen muß? Einen Kranz von Musik um ein wahres Dichterhaupt schlingen – nichts Schöneres; aber ihn an ein Alltagsgesicht verschwenden, wozu die Mühe?’ (‘Why choose mediocre poems, when this will always take revenge on the music? To braid a wreath around a true poet’s brow – nothing more beautiful; but to waste it on an everyday face, why bother?’). The Holy Sonnets of John Donne are an early example of Britten’s sophisticated literary taste which drew him to such diverse and wonderful poets as Auden, Beddoes, Blake, Brecht, Emily Brontë, Burns, Clare, Coleridge, Crabbe, Dekker, Fletcher, Goethe, Graves, Hardy, Herbert, Herrick, Hölderlin, Hopkins, Hugo, Jonson, Keats, Longfellow, Lowell, MacNeice, Michelangelo, Middleton, Milton, Moore, Nash, Owen, Pushkin, Quarles, Racine, Rimbaud, Christina Rossetti, Shakespeare, Shelley, Sitwell, Soutar, Tennyson, Vaughan, Verlaine, Virgil, Wordsworth, Yeats and Yevtushenko. The range and quality are breathtaking, and there is a sense in which Britten’s choice of texts constitutes a most original kind of autobiography.

  The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Op. 35 (1945/1947)

  Britten’s The Holy Sonnets of John Donne were completed a mere three weeks after the composer and Yehudi Menuhin had given two concerts on 27 July 1945 to the liberated survivors at Belsen after the end of the Second World War. Britten had been reading Donne’s poetry for at least two years (there is an incomplete sketch for voice and piano of ‘Stay, O Sweet, and do not rise’ that probably dates from 1941 during the composer’s sojourn in America). In a letter to Peter Pears of 6 August 1945, Britten writes rather maliciously: ‘But it’s heaven to deal with Donne instead of Montagu!’ (the librettist of Peter Grimes). Britten considered ending The Holy Sonnets of John Donne with an Epilogue (‘Perchance he for whom this bell tolls’) but eventually discarded the sketch. He and Pears gave the first performance of the work on 22 November 1945, and the critic from The Times wrote:

  In Donne’s ‘Holy Sonnets’ he had burning words to fire him. Four of the nine stood out at the first hearing; the first, ‘O my black soul’, with its headlong plunge into passionate sound; the sixth, a love song that sweetened the astringency of the seventeenth century with a breath of Schubert; the familiar ‘At the round earth’s imagined corners’, with the directness of its own trumpet call, and the final funeral march, a superb conception to match the words ‘Death, be not proud’.

  IV

  Oh my blacke Soule! now thou art summoned

  By sicknesse, deaths herald, and champion;

  Thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done

  Treason, and durst not turne to whence hee is fled,

  Or like a thiefe, which till deaths doome1 be read,

  Wisheth himselfe delivered from prison;

  But damn’d and hal’d to execution,2

  Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned.

  Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lacke;

  But who shall give thee that grace to beginne?

  Oh make thy selfe with holy mourning blacke,

  And red with blushing, as thou art with sinne;

  Or wash thee in Christs blood, which hath this might

  That being red, it dyes red soules to white.

  XIV

  Batter my heart, three person’d God1; for, you

  As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;

  That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee,’and bend

  Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.

  I, like an usurpt towne2, to’another due,

  Labour to’admit you, but Oh, to no end,

  Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,3

  But is captiv’d, and proves weake or untrue,

  Yet dearely’I love you, and would be lov’d faine4,

  But am betroth’d unto your enemie,

  Divorce mee,’untie, or breake that knot againe,

  Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I

  Except you’enthrall5 mee, never shall be free,

  Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

  (Adams)6

  III

  O might those sighes and teares returne againe

  Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,

  That I might in this holy discontent

  Mourne with some fruit, as I have mourn’d in vaine;

  In mine Idolatry what showres of raine

  Mine eyes did waste? what griefs my heart did rent?

  That sufferance1 was my sinne; now I repent;

  ’Cause I did suffer I must suffer paine.

  Th’hydroptique2 drunkard, and night-scouting3 thiefe,

  The itchy Lecher, and selfe tickling proud

  Have the remembrance of past joyes, for reliefe

  Of comming ills. To (poore) me is allow’d

  No ease; for, long, yet vehement griefe hath beene

  Th’effect and cause, the punishment and sinne.

  XIX

  Oh, to vex me, contraryes meet in one:

  Inconstancy unnaturally hath begott

  A constant habit; that when I would not

  I change in vowes, and in devotione1.

  As humorous2 is my contritione3

  As my prophane Love, and as soone forgott:

  As ridlingly distemper’d4, cold and hott,

  As pray
ing, as mute; as infinite, as none.

  I durst not view heaven yesterday; and to day

  In prayers, and flattering speaches I court God:

  To morrow I quake with true feare of his rod.

  So my devout fitts come and go away

  Like a fantastique Ague5: save that here

  Those are my best dayes, when I shake with feare.

  XIII

  What if this present were the worlds last night?

  Marke in my heart, O Soule, where thou dost dwell,

  The picture of Christ crucified1, and tell

  Whether that countenance can thee affright,

  Teares in his eyes quench the amazing2 light,

  Blood fills his frownes, which from his pierc’d head fell.

  And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell,

  Which pray’d forgiveness for his foes fierce spight?

  No, no; but as in my idolatrie

  I said to all my profane mistresses,

  Beauty, of pitty, foulnesse onely is

  A signe of rigour: so I say to thee3,

  To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign’d,

  This beauteous forme assures a pitious minde.

  XVII

  Since she whom I lov’d1 hath payd her last debt

  To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,

  And her Soule early into heaven ravished,

  Wholly on heavenly things my mind is sett.

  Here the admyring her my mind did whett

  To seeke thee God; so streames do shew their head2;

  But although I have found thee, and thou my thirst hast fed,

  A holy thirsty dropsy3 melts mee yett.

  But why should I begg more Love, when as thou

  Dost wooe my soule for hers; offring all thine:

  And dost not only feare least I allow

  My Love to Saints and Angels things divine,

  But in thy tender jealousy dost doubt4

  Least the World, Fleshe, yea Devill putt thee out.

  VII

  At the round earths imagin’d corners, blow

  Your trumpetts, Angells, and arise, arise

  From death, you numberlesse infinities

  Of soules, and to your scattred bodies goe,

  All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow,

  All whom warre, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,

  Despaire, law, chance, hath slaine, and you whose eyes,

  Shall behold God, and never tast deaths woe.

  But let them sleepe, Lord, and mee mourne a space,

  For, if above all these, my sinnes abound,

  ’Tis late to aske abundance of thy grace,

  When wee are there; here on this lowly ground,

  Teach mee how to repent; for that’s as good

  As if thou’hadst seal’d my pardon, with thy blood.

  (Parry)

  I

  Thou hast made me, and shall thy worke decay?

  Repaire me now, for now mine end doth haste,

  I runne to death, and death meets me as fast,

  And all my pleasures are like yesterday;

  I dare not move my dimme eyes any way,

  Despaire behind, and death before doth cast

  Such terrour, and my feeble flesh doth waste

  By sinne in it, which it t’wards hell doth weigh1;

  Onely thou art above, and when towards thee

  By thy leave I can looke, I rise againe;

  But our old subtle foe2 so tempteth me,

  That not one houre my selfe I can sustaine;

  Thy Grace may wing me to prevent his art,

  And thou like Adamant3 draw mine iron heart.

  X

  Death1 be not proud, though some have called thee

  Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,

  For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,

  Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.

  From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,

  Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

  And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,

  Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.

  Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

  And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,

  And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,

  And better than thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?

  One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,

  And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

  PRIAULX RAINIER: from Cycle for Declamation, for unaccompanied voice (1953/1954)1

  from Devotions XIX

  [Wee cannot bid the fruits]

  […] Wee cannot bid the fruits come in May, nor the leaves to sticke on in December. […] There are of them that will give, that will do justice, that will pardon, but they have their owne seasons for al these, and he that knows not them shall starve before that gift come. […] Reward is the season of one man, and importunitie of another; feare the season of one man, and favour of another; friendship the season of one man, and naturall affection of another; and hee that knowes not their seasons, nor cannot stay them, must lose the fruits. […]

  from Devotions XVIII

  [In the wombe of the Earth]

  […] In the wombe of the earth, wee diminish and when shee is deliverd of us, our grave opened for another, wee are not transplanted, but transported, our dust blowne away with prophane dust, with every wind.

  from Devotions XVII

  [Nunc, lento sonitu]

  Nunc, lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris.1 The Bell doth toll for him that thinkes it doth; Morieris. […] Who casts not up his Eye to the Sunne when it rises? but who takes off his Eye from a Comet when that breakes out? Who bends not his eare to any bell, which upon any occasion rings? Morieris. But who can remove it from that bell, which is passing a peece of himselfe out of this world?

  Nunc, lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris. No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were, Morieris. Any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde, Morieris; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. Nunc, lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris.

  BEN JONSON

  (1572/3–1637)

  He is a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others, given rather to lose a friend than a jest, jealous of every word and action of those about him (especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he liveth), a dissembler of ill parts which reign in him, a bragger of some good that he wanteth, thinketh nothing well but what either he himself or some of his friends and countrymen hath said or done. He is passionately kind and angry, careless either to gain or keep, vindictive, but, if he be well answered, at himself.

  WILLIAM DRUMMOND: Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden. Informations by Ben Jonson to W.D. When He Came to Scotland upon Foot (1619)

  Descended from a Scottish family, Jonson was probably born in Westminster, the posthumous son of a clergyman. His stepfather, a master bricklayer, sent him to Westminster School, where William Camden was headmaster. Jonson practised his stepfather’s trade for a while and then went soldiering in the Low Countries, where he killed an enemy champion in single combat. On his return, he became a professional actor and playwright. John Aubrey, influenced perhaps by Dekker’s attacks, wrote that he was ‘never a good actor, but an excellent instructor’. He was part-author, with Thomas Nashe, of the satirical The Isle of Dogs (1597, now lost), and was imprisoned for his pains. After the success of Every Man in His Humour (1598), in which Shakespeare acted, he produced a succession of plays, including Cynthia’s Revels (1600), masques, revels, entertainments and poems. Having killed a fellow actor, Gabriel Spencer, during a duel in 1598, he pleaded benefit of c
lergy, but was thrown into prison, where he converted to Catholicism, though he returned to Anglicanism some twelve years later. Cynthia’s Revels appeared in 1600, but his finest satirical comedies were Volpone (1605), a withering attack on human cupidity, The Silent Woman (1609), a direct ancestor of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, which Stefan Zweig freely adapted for Richard Strauss’s Die schweigsame Frau (1935), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fayre (1614). His Roman tragedies, Sejanus: His Fall (1603) and Catiline: His Conspiracy (1611), pale in comparison with Shakespeare’s Roman plays; and his later comedies such as The Devil is an Ass (1616), The New Inn (1629) and A Tale of a Tub (1633) failed to match the success of his earlier work – Dryden called them, rather unfairly, his ‘dotages’. He was a prolific writer of court masques and produced more than thirty royal entertainments for King James. He was made Poet Laureate in 1616, and two years later undertook his famous journey on foot to Scotland to visit Drummond of Hawthornden, whose recorded Conversations, considered unreliable by some commentators, contain much biographical information not found elsewhere. Discoveries, a commonplace book published posthumously in the 1640–41 two-volume Folio edition of his works, contains an attractive blend of his own thoughts and those of others. Jonson suffered a stroke in 1628 and died almost a decade later. His funeral in Westminster Abbey was attended by many friends, some of whom contributed to Jonsonus Virbius (1638), a collection of memorial elegies. It was one of these friends, Jack Young, who inscribed the words ‘O rare Ben Jonson’ on the slab over his grave in Westminster Abbey.

  Jonson was an extraordinarily versatile poet who could pen bitter epigrams, tender epigraphs, wonderful elegies on dead children (see ‘Epitaph on S[alomon] P[avy]’), religious verse and the most moving of love poems, all in a great variety of poetical forms; and, as with Goethe, some of his finest verse is to be found in his plays. His songs, almost all of which rhyme, were written in many different meters: there are Italian and English sonnets, Pindaric odes, quatrains, terza rima, and even skeltonic verse. It is perhaps the occasional nature of much of his verse – poetry occasioned by some external event – that has led to the comparative neglect; and many of the poems are included in the plays and thirty-three court masques he wrote for King James. The publication of the 1616 Folio was an historic event in the history of English literature; not only was it the first folio of a writer’s Works (including plays), but it was edited and corrected by Jonson himself, and its success almost certainly led to the publication of other dramatic collections, in particular the Shakespeare Folio of 1623, and the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio of 1647. Jonson’s plays were valued more highly than his poetry throughout the seventeenth century, and he was considered to be a more successful dramatist than Shakespeare, who was greatly admired by Jonson – see his touching poem ‘To the Memory of my Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare’.