Unable to descant in tunable rhyme (George Berg)

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  • (Posted 2019-08-27)  CPDL #55181:  Network.png
Editor: Christopher Shaw (submitted 2019-08-27).   Score information: A4, 4 pages, 76 kB   Copyright: Personal
Edition notes: Please click on the link for preview/playback/PDF download.

General Information

Title: Unable to descant in tunable rhyme
Composer: George Berg
Lyricist: Anonymous

Number of voices: 3vv   Voicing: TTB
Genre: SecularGlee

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1775
Warren's Collection of vocal harmony Description: The Despairing musician.

External websites:

Original text and translations

English.png English text

Unable to descant in tunable rhyme,
My spirits unstrung and my pulse out of time;
Of no crotchet of note my slow heart is possest,
Each jollity pauses, each fancy's at rest;
Unnatural fate, too discordant by far,
On all my gay lessons has doubled the bar,
Still sharply repeats it, denies me repose,
And slurs all my measures and varies my woes.

When I bid her move slow, then she jigs it away
And basely acts counter to all I can say;
While raging I shake with a treble vexation,
And ami is the tenor of each lamentation.
My ideas, turned grave, dance in concert no more,
Or beat to those movements no time can restore;
Yon cliff will I scale, that o'erlooks the flat plain,
Where a strong cord will end me, and with the first strain.