In vain you tell your parting lover

General information

A poem by Matthew Prior

Settings by composers

• Jonathan Battishill ATB
• Francis Hutcheson TTB
• William Jackson of Exeter solo high

Text and translations

English text

In vain you tell your parting lover,
You with fair winds may waft him over;
Alas, what winds can happy prove,
That bear me far from what I love!
Alas, what dangers on the main
Can equal those that I sustain
From slighted love and cold disdain?

Be gentle, and in pity choose
To wish the wildest tempest loose;
That thrown again upon the coast,
Where first my shipwrecked heart was lost,
I may once more repeat my pain,
Once more in dying notes complain
Of slighted vows and cold disdain.