Ah, welladay (Thomas Arne)

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• (Posted 2023-11-07)  CPDL #77057: 

Editor: Christopher Shaw (submitted 2023-11-07).   Score information: A4, 4 pages, 512 kB   Copyright: CC BY SA

Edition notes: Please click on the link for preview/playback/PDF download. This edition includes the original instrumental accompaniment.

• (Posted 2023-11-07)  CPDL #77056: 

Editor: Christopher Shaw (submitted 2023-11-07).   Score information: A4, 3 pages, 184 kB   Copyright: CC BY SA

Edition notes: Please click on the link for preview/playback/PDF download. This edition includes a keyboard reduction of the original instrumental accompaniment.

General Information

Title: Ah, welladay
Composer: Thomas Arne
Lyricist: Ambrose Philips (adapted)
Number of voices: 1v   Voicing: solo high
Genre: Secular, Aria

Language: English
Instruments: Basso continuo,Violins

First published: 1748
Description: Probably written for performance at Vauxhall. The text is adapted from Philips' First Pastoral.

Original text and translations

English text

Ah! Welladay! must I endure
This pain, and who shall work my cure?
Fond love will never seek repose;
No measure to its grief it knows.
The winds are hush'd, and dewy sleep
With soft embrace has seiz'd my sheep.
All wrapp'd in peaceful slumber lie,
But wakeful Philomel and I.

Who better seen, in shepherd's arts,
To win the wanton lasses' hearts?
How to my oaten pipe so sweet
Wont they to change their nimble feet?
And many tales of mirth had I,
To chase the sun down the sky:
Since Lucy wrought her spite alone,
To woods I pour my fruitless moan.

Oh quit thy scorn, relentless fair!
E'er long I perish through despair.
Had Rosalind possess'd my mind,
The maiden would have been more kind.
Oh think! for beauty will not stay,
The flow'rs ungather'd will decay:
The flow'rs returning seasons bring,
But beauty has no second Spring.

Oh would my gifts but win her heart!
Could I but half I feel impart!
For plums I'd climb the knotty tree,
Of honey rob the thrifty bee:
Fair is my flock; nor comeless I,
If fountains flatter not; and why
Should fountains flatter us, yet show
The flow'rs less beauteous than they grow?

Oh come, my love! nor think it mean
The dams to milk, the lambkins wean:
How would the crook beseem thy hand!
How would my younglings round thee stand!
Ah younglings! gaze not on her eye:
Such glances are the cause I die.
Sleep, sleep, my flock, for you may take
Your rest; tho' thus your master wake.