Frederick Delius is by no means my favourite composer, but when I heard yesterday of the death of the fine English baritone John Shirley-Quirk, I immediately decided to post this piece as a tribute. It’s a sumptuous setting, by Delius, of Ernest Dowson‘s sensual and languid poem Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae which is named after a phrase from Horace but is actually, obviously, about the poet’s obsession with a lost love. I probably shouldn’t mention that the lost love in question was an eleven year old girl and he was 24. Dowson pursued her unsuccessfully for eight years. When eventually, at the age of 19, she married someone else he drank himself to death at the age of 32. Oscar Wilde said of Dowson:
Poor wounded wonderful fellow that he was, a tragic reproduction of all tragic poetry, like a symbol, or a scene. I hope bay leaves will be laid on his tomb and rue and myrtle too for he knew what love was.
Anyway, the music and words are beautifully woven together and also beautifully sung. RIP John Shirley-Quirk.
Here’s the text of the poem
Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine; And I was desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat, Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay; Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet; But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, When I awoke and found the dawn was grey: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind, But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, all the time, because the dance was long: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I cried for madder music and for stronger wine, But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire, Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine; And I am desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon, Rapid clouds have drank the last pale beam of even: Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon, And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.
Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away! Tempt not with one last tear thy friend’s ungentle mood: Thy lover’s eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay: Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.
Away, away! to thy sad and silent home; Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth; Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come, And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.
The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head: The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet: But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead, Ere midnight’s frown and morning’s smile, ere thou and peace may meet.
The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose, For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep: Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows; Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep.
Thou in the grave shalt rest—yet till the phantoms flee Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile, Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not free From the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822); posted to mark the 200th anniversary of the poem’s composition.
I marvel how Nature could ever find space For so many strange contrasts in one human face: There’s thought and no thought, and there’s paleness and bloom And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.
There’s weakness, and strength both redundant and vain; Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain Could pierce through a temper that’s soft to disease, Would be rational peace–a philosopher’s ease.
There’s indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds, And attention full ten times as much as there needs; Pride where there’s no envy, there’s so much of joy; And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.
There’s freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she’s there, There’s virtue, the title it surely may claim, Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name.
This picture from nature may seem to depart, Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart; And I for five centuries right gladly would be Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he.
Spring Song, Meirionydd
A white combustion rules these fields,
and testifies to men, and rams;
the mind of winter thaws, and yields–
Great God, the world is drunk with lambs.
The high grey stone is clean of snows, the streams come tumbling, far from dams; the wind is green, the day’s eye grows– Great God, the world is drunk with lambs.
The heart, gone light as all the ewes, redounds with milk, and epigrams that make no sense; except their news– Great God, the world is drunk with lambs.
In gold October, grown to size, they’ll know the hook, and hang with hams, but March is all their enterprise– Great God, the world is drunk with lambs.
It’s St David’s Day today so Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus! I’m in Cardiff and shortly heading to St David’s Hall for a gala concert being held to mark the occasion. As has become traditional on this blog, I thought I’d post a poem by the great Welsh poet R.S. Thomas. This is called Welsh History:
We were a people taut for war; the hills Were no harder, the thin grass Clothed them more warmly than the coarse Shirts our small bones. We fought, and were always in retreat, Like snow thawing upon the slopes Of Mynydd Mawr; and yet the stranger Never found our ultimate stand In the thick woods, declaiming verse To the sharp prompting of the harp. Our kings died, or they were slain By the old treachery at the ford. Our bards perished, driven from the halls Of nobles by the thorn and bramble. We were a people bred on legends, Warming our hands at the red past. The great were ashamed of our loose rags Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree Of blood and birth, our lean bellies And mud houses were a proof Of our ineptitude for life. We were a people wasting ourselves In fruitless battles for our masters, In lands to which we had no claim, With men for whom we felt no hatred. We were a people, and are so yet. When we have finished quarrelling for crumbs Under the table, or gnawing the bones Of a dead culture, we will arise And greet each other in a new dawn.
Spring is like a perhaps hand (which comes carefully out of Nowhere) arranging a window,into which people look (while people stare arranging and changing placing carefully there a strange thing and a known thing here) and
changing everything carefully
spring is like a perhaps Hand in a window (carefully to and from moving New and Old things, while people stare carefully moving a perhaps fraction of flower here placing an inch of air there) and
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