by Thomas Dekker (c1572 - 1632)
Golden slumbers kiss your eyes
Language: English
Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, Smiles awake you when you rise: Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby, Rock them, rock [them]1, lullaby. Care is heavy, therefore sleep you; You are care and care must keep you: Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby: Rock them, rock [them]1, lullaby.
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View original text (without footnotes)Confirmed with Henry Chettle and Thomas Dekker, Patient Grissil, London, 1632. Modernized spelling.
1Warlock: "a lulla"Text Authorship:
- by Thomas Dekker (c1572 - 1632), "The song", appears in The Pleasant Comoedy of Patient Grissill, first published 1603 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, Baron Berners (1883 - 1950), "Lullaby", 1920, published 1920 [ voice and piano ], from Three English Songs, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Hans Gál (1890 - 1987), "A cradle song", op. 51 no. 3 (1939), published 1949 [ SATB chorus a cappella ], from Four Madrigals, no. 3, Novello, London [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Herbert Norman Howells (1892 - 1983), "An Old Man's Lullaby", 1917 [ voice and piano ], from Three Songs, no. 2, confirmed with a concert programme booklet [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Francis Alan Jackson (b. 1917), "Golden slumbers kiss your eyes", subtitle: "A lullaby", op. 19 no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by John Jeffreys (1927 - 2010), "Golden slumbers" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Jeffreys (1927 - 2010), "Lullaby" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Golden Slumbers", op. 381 (1953) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir (1852 - 1924), "Golden slumbers", op. 19 (Six songs) no. 2 (1882), published 1884 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Peter Warlock (1894 - 1930), "Lullaby", 1918, published 1919 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in English, [adaptation] ; composed by Alfredo Casella.
- Also set in French (Français), a translation by Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi (1877 - 1944) ; composed by Alfredo Casella.
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 10
Word count: 59