The Shepherd’s Elegy (Alexandra Thomson)

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(Posted 2023-12-13) CPDL #78178:

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-12-13). Score information: Letter, 12 pages, 722 kB Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: The Shepherd’s Elegy
Composer: Alexandra Thomson
Lyricist: William Browne
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong, Madrigal

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1894 Novello, Ewer, and Co.
Description: Madrigals, Opus 12, No. 2

External websites:

Original text and translations

English text

Glide soft, ye silver floods,
And every spring:
Within the shady woods
Let no bird sing!
Nor from the grove a turtle-dove
Be seen to couple with her love;
But silence on each dale and mountain dwell,
Whilst Willy bids his friend and joy farewell!

Cease, cease, ye murm’ring winds
To move a wave;
But if with troubled minds
You seek his grave;
Know, ‘tis as various as yourselves,
Now in the deep, then on the shelves,
His coffin toss’d by fish and surges fell,
Whilst Willy weeps, and bids all joy farewell.

Had he, Arion-like,
Been judged to drown,
He on his lute could strike
So rare a sowne,
A thousand dolphins would have come
And jointly strove to bring him home.
But he on shipboard dy’d, by sickness fell,
Since when his Willy bade all joy farewell.

Great Neptune, hear a swain!
His coffin take,
And with a golden chain
For pity make
It fast unto a rock near land!
Where ev’ry calmy morn I’ll stand,
And ere one sheep out of my fold I tell,
Sad Willy’s pipe shall bid his friend and joy farewell.