The blue-bell (George J. Webb)

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• (Posted 2024-02-22)  CPDL #79234:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2024-02-22).   Score information: Letter, 8 pages, 438 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: The blue-bell
Composer: George J. Webb
Lyricist:attr. R. T.
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1850 Mason & Law
Description: 

Original text and translations

English text

“I would not be a floweret hung
    On high in mountain snows;
Nor o’er a castle wall be flung
    All stately though it rose:
        I’d breathe no sighs
        For cloudless skies,
            Nor perfumed eastern gale,
        So I might be
        A blue-bell free,
            In some low verdant vale.

“For there the swains and maidens meet,
    With summer sport and song,
And fairies lead with unseen feet
    Their moonlight dance along:
        Each tiny lip
        Would gladly sip
            The dew my cup enshrined,
        And next morn’s bee
        Would drink from me
            The sweets they left behind.

“The laurel hath a loftier name,
    The rose a brighter hue,
With Heaven I’d be clad the same
    In fair and fadeless blue:
        No blood-stain’d chief
        Ere plucks this leaf,
            To make his wreath more gay!
        Though still its flower
        Decks village bower,
            And twines the shafts of May.”

Sweet Maiden! may thy gentle breast
    As artless pleasures swell,
As those thou deemest still to rest
    In thy beloved blue- bell!
        And may’st thou feel,
        Though time shall steal
            Thy beauty’s freshest hue,
        A bliss still shed
        Around thy head,—
            Unchanged like Heaven’s own blue!