La Belle Dame Sans Merci (Jon Corelis)
Music files
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- (Posted 2011-09-07) CPDL #24378:
- Editor: Jon Corelis (submitted 2011-09-07). Score information: Letter, 9 pages, 110 kB Copyright: Personal
- Edition notes:
General Information
Title: La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Composer: Jon Corelis
Lyricist: John Keats
Number of voices: 2vv Voicing: SA
Genre: Secular, Partsong
Language: English
Instruments: Harp
First published: 2011
Description: My musical setting for Keats's La Belle Dame Sans Merci. This version has a harp accompaniment, though the first few stanzas are a cappella. The accompaniment is by way of example; other instruments could be used, or the song could be sung a cappella. There is an a cappella version, with some slight differences in the melody, available (see External Web Links below.) Flute used in this sound file to simulate voice; written for female voice, though I suppose it could also be sung by male tenor. I may have a slightly revised version of the accompanied version soon. Lyrics below.
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!’
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.