Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears: [Yet slower, yet; O faintly,]1 gentle springs: List to the heavy part the music bears, Woe weeps out her [division]2 when she sings. Droop herbs and flowers, Fall grief in showers, Our [beauties are]3 not ours; [O, I could still,]4 Like melting snow upon some craggy hill, [Drop, drop, drop, drop,]5 Since [nature's]6 pride is, now, a withered daffodil.
Three Songs of Ben Jonson
Song Cycle by Geoffrey Bush (1920 - 1998)
1. Echo's Lament for Narcissus  [sung text checked 1 time]
Language: English
Authorship:
- by Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637), from Cynthia's Revels, Act I Scene 2.
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Horsley: "O slower yet, O fainter"
2 Horsley: "division"
3 Horsley: "beauty is"
4 Quilter: "Or I could still"; Horsley: "O could I still"
5 Horsley: "Fall down, fall down."
6 Horsley: "summer's"
Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
2. The Kiss  [sung text checked 1 time]
Language: English
O that joy so soon should waste! Or so sweet a bliss As a kiss Might not for ever last! So sugared, so melting, so soft, so delicious, The dew that lies on roses, When the morn herself discloses, Is not so precious. O, rather than it would I smother, Were I to taste such another; It should be my wishing That I might die kissing.
Authorship:
- by Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637)
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Researcher for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]3. A Rebuke  [sung text checked 1 time]
Language: English
Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd: Lady, Lady, it is to be presum'd: Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair is free; Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all th'adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
Authorship:
- by Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637)
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) (Richard Flatter) , "Süße Saumsal", appears in Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten, first published 1936
Total word count: 217