1. PRÄLUDIUM

Hamlet (first voice) :

Doubt thou stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love

Romeo (second voice) :

O, speak again, bright angel!
As glorious
To this night


2. SONNET OF THE MOON

Look how the pale queen of the silent night
Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her,
And he, as long as she is in his sight,
With her full tide is ready her to honor.

But when the silver waggon of the moon
Is mounted up so high he cannot follow,
The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan,
And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow.

So you that are the sovereign of my heart
Have all my joys attending on your will;
My joys low-ebbing when you do depart,
When you return their tide my heart doth fill.

So as you come and as you do depart,
Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart.


3. MY DYING BRIDE

When that eye of light shall in darkness fall,
And thy bosom be shrouded in death's cold pall,
When the bloom of that rich red lip shall fade,
And thy head on its pillow of dust be laid;

Oh! then thy spirit shall see how true
Are the holy vows I have breathed to you;
My form shall moulder thy grave beside,
And in the blue heavens I'll seek my bride.

Then we'll tell, as we tread yon azure sphere,
Of the woes we have known while lingering here;
And our spirits shall joy that, their pilgrimage o'er,
They have met in the heavens to sever no more.


4. CARE, CHARMER SLEEP

Care, charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,
Relieve my languish and restore the light,
With dark forgetting of my cares, return.

And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill adventured youth,
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn
Without the torment of the night's untruth

Cease, dreams, the images of day desires,
To model forth the passion of the morrow,
Never let rising sun approve you liars
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.

Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
and never wake to feel the day's disdain.


5. FIRE SOUL

I sat by my fire in the night, in the night,
The darkness grew deeper around me,
The last faint gleams of the flickering light
Faded out of my sight, into night, into night,
And the spell of revery bound me.

When sudden I saw in the vanishing light
A phantom hovering o'er me;
It wavered an instant in its flight;-
Then faded from sight, into night, into night,
And left but the darkness before me.

And yet so swift and sudden its flight,
So deep the shadows before me,
I knew not whether a beckoning sprite
Had glimmered white, in the night, in the night,
Or only a thought sped o'er me.