Shall I, wasting in despair (John Liptrot Hatton)

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(Posted 2019-10-09) CPDL #55568:

Editor: James Gibb (submitted 2019-10-09). Score information: A4, 9 pages, 135 kB Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: Shall I, wasting in despair
Composer: John Liptrot Hatton
Lyricist: George Wither

Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: ATTB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: Keyboard

First published: 1874 in Novello's Part-Song Book (2nd series), Vol. 7, no. 235
Description:

External websites:

Original text and translations

English text

1 Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care,
'Cause another's rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flow'ry meads of May,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?

2 Shall a woman's virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or her well-deservings known,
Make me quite forget my own?
Be she meeker, kinder,
Than turtle dove or pelican,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how kind she be?

3 Great, or good, or kind, or fair,
I will ne'er the more despair,
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve;
If she slight me when I woo,
I do scorn and let her go;
If she be not made for me,
What care I for whom she be?