The anniversary (Stuart Moffatt)

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(Posted 2022-06-29) CPDL #69840:

Editor: Stuart Moffatt (submitted 2022-06-29). Score information: A4 (landscape), 12 pages, 437 kB Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes:

General Information

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

Language: English
Instruments: Mixed ensemble

First published: 2003
Description:

External websites:

Original text and translations

English text

All kings and all their favourites
All glory of honours beauty and wits
The sun itself which makes time as they pass
Is elder by a¹ year now than it was
When thou and I first one another saw
All other things to their destruction draw
Only our love hath no decay
This no tomorrow hath, no yesterday
Running it never ran from us away
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

And then we shall be throughly blest;
But now no more than all the rest.
Here upon earth we're kings, and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
Who is so safe as we? where none can do
Treason to us, except one of us two.
True and false fears let us refrain,
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore; this is the second² of our reign.

Two graves must hide thine and my corse;
If one might, death were no divorce.
Alas ! as well as other princes, we
Who prince enough in one another be
Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears,
Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears;
But souls where nothing dwells but love
All other thoughts being inmates then shall prove
This or a love increasèd there above,
When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.

Altered for the purpose of the setting:
¹Is elder by some years now than it was
²To write threescore; this is the silver of our reign.