When thro’ life unblest we rove (Michael William Balfe)

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• (Posted 2024-01-12)  CPDL #78696:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2024-01-12).   Score information: Letter, 12 pages, 548 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: When thro’ life unblest we rove
Composer: Anonymous (Traditional)
Arranger: Michael William Balfe
Lyricist: Thomas Moore
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong, Folksong

Language: English
Instruments: Piano

First published: 1859 J. Alfred Novello
Description: ON MUSIC

AIR: BANKS OF BANNA

Original text and translations

English text

When thro’ life unblest we rove,
        Losing all that made life dear,
    Should some notes we used to love,
        In days of boyhood, meet our ear,
    Oh! how welcome breathes the strain!
        Wakening thoughts that long have slept;
    Kindling former smiles again
        In faded eyes that long have wept.

    Like the gale, that sighs along
        Beds of oriental flowers,
    Is the grateful breath of song,
        That once was heard in happier hours;
    Filled with balm, the gale sighs on,
        Tho’ the flowers have sunk in death;
    So, when pleasure’s dream is gone,
        Its memory lives in Music’s breath.

    Music, oh how faint, how weak,
        Language fades before thy spell!
    Why should Feeling ever speak,
        When thou canst breathe her soul so well?
    Friendship’s balmy words may feign,
        Love’s are even more false than they;
    Oh! ’tis only music’s strain
        Can sweetly soothe, and not betray.