What shepherd or nymph of the grove (Thomas Arne)

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• (Posted 2025-10-09)  CPDL #87088: 

Editor: Christopher Shaw (submitted 2025-10-09).   Score information: A4, 4 pages, 147 kB   Copyright: CC BY SA

Edition notes: Please click on the link for preview/playback/PDF download. This edition includes the original instrumental accompaniment.

• (Posted 2025-10-09)  CPDL #87087: 

Editor: Christopher Shaw (submitted 2025-10-09).   Score information: A4, 3 pages, 94 kB   Copyright: CC BY SA

Edition notes: Please click on the link for preview/playback/PDF download. This edition includes a keyboard reduction of the original instrumental accompaniment.

General Information

Title: What shepherd or nymph of the grove
Composer: Thomas Arne
Lyricist:
Number of voices: 1v   Voicing: solo high
Genre: Secular, Aria

Language: English
Instruments: Basso continuo, violin

First published: 1760
Description: Probably written for performance at Vauxhall. The author of the text is unknown, but is reminiscent of the style of William Shenstone

Original text and translations

English text

What shepherd or nymph of the grove
Can blame me for dropping a tear,
Or lamenting aloud as I rove,
Since Phoebe no longer is here?
My flocks, if at random they stray,
What wonder? since she's from the plain;
Her hand they were wont to obey;
She rul'd both the sheep and the swain.

Can I ever forget how we stray'd
To the foot of yon neighbouring hill,
To the bow'r we had built in the shade,
Or the river that runs by the mill?
There, sweet by my side as she lay
And heard the fond stories I told,
How sweet was the thrush from the spray,
Or the bleating of lambs from the fold.

How oft I would spy out a charm,
Which before had been hid from my view;
And while arm was enfolded in arm,
My lips to her lips how they grew;
How long the sweet contest would last,
'Til the hour of retirement and rest;
What pleasures and pains each had past,
Who longest had lov'd and who best.

No changes of place or of time
I felt, when my fair one was near;
Alike was each weather and clime,
Each session that chequer'd the year.
In winter's rude lap did we freeze?
Did we melt on the bosom of May?
Each morn brought contentment and ease;
We rose up to work or to play.

She was all my fond wishes could ask,
She had all the kind gods could impart;
She was nature's most beautiful task,
The despair and the envy of art.
There, all that was worthy to prize
In all that was lovely was dress'd;
For the graces were thron'd in her eyes
And the virtues all lodg'd in her breast.