La Belle Dame Sans Merci (Jon Corelis)

From ChoralWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

Music files

L E G E N D Disclaimer How to download
ICON SOURCE
Icon_pdf.gif Pdf
Icon_mp3.gif Mp3
MusicXML.png MusicXML
File details.gif File details
Question.gif Help
  • (Posted 2011-09-07)  CPDL #24378:       
Editor: Jon Corelis (submitted 2011-09-07).   Score information: Letter, 9 pages, 110 kB   Copyright: Personal
Edition notes:

General Information

Title: La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Composer: Jon Corelis
Lyricist: John Keats

Number of voices: 2vv   Voicing: SA
Genre: SecularPartsong

Language: English
Instruments: Harp

First published: 2011
Description: My musical setting for Keats's La Belle Dame Sans Merci. This version has a harp accompaniment, though the first few stanzas are a cappella. The accompaniment is by way of example; other instruments could be used, or the song could be sung a cappella. There is an a cappella version, with some slight differences in the melody, available (see External Web Links below.) Flute used in this sound file to simulate voice; written for female voice, though I suppose it could also be sung by male tenor. I may have a slightly revised version of the accompanied version soon. Lyrics below.

External websites:

Original text and translations

English.png English text

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
 Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
 And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
 So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
 And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
 With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
 Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
 Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
 And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
 And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
 And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
 And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
 A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
 And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
 ‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her elfin grot,
 And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
 With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,
 And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
 On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
 Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
 Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
 With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
 On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
 Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
 And no birds sing.