Two Songs for Voice and String Quartet

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear, your true love's coming 
That can sing both high and low.

[Trip]1 no [further]2, pretty sweeting;
[Journeys]3 end in lovers' meeting,
Ev'ry wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:

[In]4 delay there lies no plenty;
Then [come kiss]5 me, sweet and twenty;
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

Text Authorship:

• by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Twelfth Night: or, What You Will, Act II, Scene 3

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Paavo Cajander)
• FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo)
• GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (David Paley) , "O Fräulein meins! Woher du wanderst", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• IRI Irish (Gaelic) [singable] (Gabriel Rosenstock) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• ITA Italian (Italiano) (Paolo Montanari) , "O mia signora", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• POL Polish (Polski) (Józef Komierowski) , no title [an adaptation]

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Korngold: "O trip"
² [sic] ; and Hall: "farther"
³ Korngold: "For journeyes"
⁴ Korngold: "And in"
⁵ Korngold: "come and kiss"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]