Love laid his sleepless head

song for voice and piano

General Information – Performing Forces – Manuscript – Publication – Recordings – Text

General Information:

Composition:
Manuscript is dated July 1918.

First Documented Performance:
Thursday, 9 April 1992. Liddiard Theatre, Darlington. Teresa Troiani soprano, Eileen Bown piano. British Music Society Concert of British Songs

Text:
A. C. Swinburne (1837–1909)
Click here for complete text.

Performing Forces:

Voice

Piano

Manuscript:

Frederick R. Koch Collection. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Manuscript FRKF 1333. Autograph manuscript score. Titled 'Song'. Dated 'July 1918'. 3 pages.

Publication:

Oxford University Press. Included in Four Early Songs, 2002, 019 3458683, titled "Song".
            [Purchase online from SheetMusicPlus.com: Four Early Songs]

Recordings:

This work has never been recorded.

Text:

Love laid his sleepless head
On a thorny rosy bed;
And his eyes with tears were red,
And pale his lips as the dead.

And fear and sorrow and scorn
Kept watch by his head forlorn,
Till the night was overworn
And the day* was merry with morn.

And Joy came up with the day
And kissed Love's lips as he lay,
And the watchers ghostly and grey
Sped from his pillow away.

And his eyes as the dawn grew bright,
And his lips waxed ruddy as light:
Sorrow may reign for a night,
But day shall bring back delight.

— A. C. Swinburne (1837–1909)

* A note in the published score reads: "Thus in Walton's MS, though Swinburne's poem has 'world'."

WilliamWalton.net – Catalogue of Works – Solo Vocal Music