by Alice Cary (1820 - 1871)
Nothing
Language: English
The sun comes up and the sun goes down, And the day and the night are the same as one; The year grows green and the year grows brown, And what is it all when all is done? Grains of sombre or shining sand, Sliding into and out of hand. And men go down in ships to the sea, And a thousand ships are the same as one; And backward and forward blows the breeze, And what is it all when all is done? A tide with never a shore in sight, setting steadily on towards night. The fisherman droppeth his net in the stream, And a hundred streams are the same as one; The maiden dreameth her love-lit dream, And what is it all when all is done? The fisher's net the burden breaks, And after the dreaming the dreamer awakes!
Authorship:
- by Alice Cary (1820 - 1871) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Clara Kathleen Rogers (1844 - 1931), "Nothing", op. 10 (Six Songs) no. 6, published 1882 [ voice and piano ], Boston : Arthur P. Schmidt and Co. [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Johann Winkler
This text was added to the website: 2020-09-19
Line count: 18
Word count: 142