Down by the brooklet’s side (John Harrison Tenney)
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- (Posted 2024-06-06) CPDL #80845:
- Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2024-06-06). Score information: Letter, 12 pages, 503 kB Copyright: Personal
- Edition notes:
General Information
Title: Down by the brooklet’s side
Composer: John Harrison Tenney
Lyricist: Harriet Ellen Grannis Arey
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong
Language: English
Instruments: A cappella
First published: 1875 Lee & Shepard
Description: THE BLUE VIOLET’S SONG
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
Down by the brooklet’s side,
Where the soft waters glide
Gently and sweetly away to the sea,
Lifting my tiny bell
Up from the leafy dell,
There is my birth-place—the dwelling for me.
There, where the wild bird’s song
Chants, through the summer long,
Strains of affection, unchanging, and true,
Formed by a fairy’s wand,
Claiming no care, I stand
Wooing the sunbeams, and quaffing the dew.
Not where the diamond gleams,—
Not where the wine cup streams,
Jars not the revel the bowers that I wreathe,
Sought for no festal hall,
Prized by no pride at all,
Care heaps no sighs on the pure air I breathe.
But, o’er the dewy lawn,
Called by the breaking dawn
Up from their sleep in some vine-girded cot,
Maidens of merry mien
Gather the cowslips green,
Breathing the songs that their heaven-dreams have taught.
I, in my lowly bower,
Envy no gayer flower;
Fanned by the bright wing of hum-bird and bee,
While by the streamlet’s side,
Glad as the laughing tide,
Velvet-cheeked children are seeking for me.
Still let the nightingale
Fondly the rose assail,
Pouring its moon-sick strains—wasting its sighs;
But on the Violet’s breast,
Still shall the angels rest,
Long as we garner the tints of the skies.