Memories of childhood (Alfred Arthur Graley)

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(Posted 2024-05-08) CPDL #80567:

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2024-05-08). Score information: Letter, 8 pages, 354 kB Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: Memories of childhood
Composer: Alfred Arthur Graley
Lyricist:
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1874 Taintor Brothers
Description:

External websites:

Original text and translations

English text

Life’s rosy morn has passed away,
Its sunny noon has fled;
I pensive walk the silent vale,
With evening shades o’erspread:
I backward trace life’s checkered path,
Its sunshine and its showers,
And mem’ry’s tendrils ’twine around
My childhood’s happy hours.

Sweet hours, no cankering care ye brought,
To dim with tears the eye;
Or if a cloud with sorrow fraught
Swept o’er the sunny sky,
As falls the gentle dew on flowers,
When sinks the sun to rest.
So gently fell the briny showers
Upon the youthful breast.

The songs I sung in early days
In notes to melt or cheer,
From happy home, and woodland wild,
Now strike upon my ear:
I hear them as I hear a strain,
On some far distant shore,
Oh, could I sing them now, as then,
And be a child once more!

So pass away earth’s choicest sweets
Before the march of time;
So let them pass, for faith discerns
A fairer, purer clime:
Friends of my youth, we’ll meet again
In Eden’s fadeless bowers,
And sing in louder, sweeter strain
The joys of childhood’s hours.