On a poet's lips I slept Dreaming like a love-adept In the sound his breathing kept; Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, But feeds on the aëreal kisses Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. He will watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, Nor heed nor see, what things they be; But from these create he can Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of immortality!
Nocturne for tenor solo, seven obligato instruments and string orchestra
Song Cycle by (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976)
Translated to:
Catalan (Català) — Nocturn per a tenor solo, set obligato instruments i orquestra de cordes (Salvador Pila)
1. On a poet's lips I slept  [sung text checked 1 time]
Text Authorship:
- by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), appears in Prometheus Unbound
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "He dormit damunt els llavis d’un poeta", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRE French (Français) (Jean-Pierre Granger)
2. Below the thunders of the upper deep  [sung text checked 1 time]
Below the thunders of the upper deep; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides: above him swell Huge sponges of millenial growth and height; And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumber'd and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by [man]1 and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
Text Authorship:
- by Alfred Tennyson, Lord (1809 - 1892), "The Kraken", appears in Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, first published 1830
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Sota el renou del raser de l’oceà", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRE French (Français) (Jean-Pierre Granger)
1 Britten: "men"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
3. Encinctured with a twine of leaves  [sung text checked 1 time]
Encinctured with a twine of leaves, That leafy twine his only dress! A lovely Boy was plucking fruits, By moonlight, in a wilderness. The moon was bright, the air was free, And fruits and flowers together grew On many a shrub and many a tree: And all put on a gentle hue, Hanging in the shadowy air Like a picture rich and rare. It was a climate where, they say, The night is more beloved than day. But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd That beauteous boy to linger here? Alone, by night, a little child, In place so silent and so wild - Has he no friend, no loving mother near?
Text Authorship:
- by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834), appears in The Wanderings of Cain
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Cinturat amb una gansalla de fulles", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRE French (Français) (Jean-Pierre Granger)
4. Midnight's bell goes ting, ting, ting  [sung text checked 1 time]
Midnight's bell goes ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, Then dogs do howl, and not a bird does sing But the nightingale, and she cries twit, twit, twit; Owls then on every bough do sit; Ravens croak on chimneys' tops; The cricket in the chamber hops; The nibbling mouse is not asleep, But he goes peep, peep, peep, peep, peep; And the cats cry mew, mew, mew, And still the cats cry mew, mew, mew.
Text Authorship:
- by Thomas Middleton (1570? - 1627), appears in Blurt, Master Constable
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "La campana a mitjanit fa ting, ting, ting", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRE French (Français) (Jean-Pierre Granger)
5. But that night when on my bed I lay  [sung text checked 1 time]
But that night When on my bed I lay, I was most mov'd And felt most deeply in what world I was; With unextinguish'd taper I kept watch, Reading at intervals; the fear gone by Press'd on me almost like a fear to come; I thought of those September Massacres, Divided from me by a little month, And felt and touch'd them, a substantial dread: The rest was conjured up from tragic fictions, And mournful Calendars of true history, Remembrances and dim admonishments. "The horse is taught his manage, and the wind Of heaven wheels round and treads in his own steps, Year follows year, the tide returns again, Day follows day, all things have second birth; The earthquake is not satisfied all at once." And in such way I wrought upon myself, Until I seem'd to hear a voice that cried To the whole City, "Sleep no more."
Text Authorship:
- by William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850), appears in The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem, first published 1805
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Però aquella nit quan jeia al meu llit", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRE French (Français) (Jean-Pierre Granger)
6. She sleeps on soft, last breaths  [sung text checked 1 time]
She sleeps on soft, last breaths; but no ghost looms Out of the stillness of her palace wall, Her wall of boys on boys and dooms on dooms. She dreams of golden gardens and sweet glooms, Not marvelling why her roses never fall Nor what red mouths were torn to make their blooms. The shades keep down which well might roam her hall. Quiet their blood lies in her crimson rooms And she is not afraid of their footfall. They move not from her tapestries, their pall, Nor pace her terraces, their hecatombs, Lest aught she be disturbed, or grieved at all.
Text Authorship:
- by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918), "The kind ghosts", from Poems, first published 1931
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Ella dorm amb suaus, incessants respirs", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRE French (Français) (Jean-Pierre Granger)
7. What is more gentle than a wind in summer?  [sung text checked 1 time]
What is more gentle than a wind in summer?
What is more soothing than the pretty hummer
That stays one moment in an open flower,
And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?
What is more tranquil than a musk-rose blowing
In a green island, far from all men’s knowing?
More healthful than the leafiness of dales?
More secret than a nest of nightingales?
More serene than Cordelia’s countenance?
More full of visions than a high romance?
What, but thee Sleep? Soft closer of our eyes!
Low murmurer of tender lullabies!
Light hoverer around our happy pillows!
Wreather of poppy buds, and weeping willows!
Silent entangler of a beauty’s tresses!
Most happy listener! when the morning blesses
Thee for enlivening all the cheerful eyes
That glance so brightly at the new sun-rise.
[ ... ]
Text Authorship:
- by John Keats (1795 - 1821), "Sleep and Poetry"
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Què és més suau que l’oreig a l’estiu?", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRE French (Français) (Jean-Pierre Granger)
The poem is headed by a quote from Chaucer:
«As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete Was unto me, but why that I ne might Rest I ne wist, for there n’as erthly wight [As I suppose] had more of hertis ese Than I, for I n’ad sicknesse nor disese.»1 Gendel finishes his setting with a line from later in the poem: "Could all this be forgotten?"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
8. When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see  [sung text checked 1 time]
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow's form form happy show To the clear [day]1 with thy much clearer light, When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so? How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made By looking on thee in the living day, When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay? All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
Text Authorship:
- by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Sonnets, no. 43
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Quan més parpellejo, millor hi veuen els meus ulls", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title, appears in Sonnets de Shakespeare, no. 43, first published 1857
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Più io li tengo chiusi, più i miei occhi son chiari", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
1 Britten: "days"
Researcher for this page: Ted Perry