Sweetest love (Stuart Moffatt)

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(Posted 2022-06-29) CPDL #69841:

Editor: Stuart Moffatt (submitted 2022-06-29). Score information: A4, 4 pages, 228 kB Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: Sweetest love
Composer: Stuart Moffatt
Lyricist: John Donne
Number of voices: 1v Voicing: S
Genre: Secular, Chanson

Language: English
Instruments: Piano

First published: 1997
Description:

External websites:

Original text and translations

English text

Sweetest love, I do not go
For in weariness of thee
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me
But since that I
Must die at last, 'tis best
to use my self in jest
thus by feigned death to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here today,
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way:
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!
But come bad chance,
And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o'er us to advance.

When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away,
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
Thou art the best of me.

Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill,
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy tears fulfill;
But think that we
Are but turned aside to sleep;
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.