Delusive, sightless god (Samuel Webbe)
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- Editor: Christopher Shaw (submitted 2022-01-17). Score information: A4, 7 pages, 330 kB Copyright: CC BY SA
- Edition notes: Includes a keyboard reduction of the a cappella choral score. Please click on the link for preview/playback/PDF download.
General Information
Title: Delusive, sightless god
Composer: Samuel Webbe
Lyricist: James Cawthorncreate page
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Glee
Language: English
Instruments: A cappella
First published: 1782 Warren's eighteenth collection
Description: Setting of a portion of Cawthorn's "Abelard to Eloisa".
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
Delusive, sightless god of warm desire,
Why would'st thou wish to set a wretch on fire?
Why lives thy soft divinity
Where woe heaves the pale sigh
And anguish loves to glow?
Fly to the mead, the daisy painted vale,
Breathe in its sweets, and melt along the gale.
Fly where gay scenes luxurious youths employ,
Where ev'ry moment steals the wing of joy;
There may'st thou see, low prostrate at thy throne,
Devoted slaves and victims all thy own.
Each village swain the turf-built shrine shall raise,
And kings command whole hecatombs to blaze.
But oh, what conflicts this frail bosom tear,
What griefs I suffer, and what pangs I bear;
Oblivion, be thy blackest plume display'd
O'er all my griefs, and hide me in the shade!