The happiest land (John Liptrot Hatton)

Music files

L E G E N D

Disclaimer

How to download

ICON	SOURCE
	Pdf
	Midi
	MusicXML
	Capella
	File details
	Help

• (Posted 2019-10-05)  CPDL #55523:         

Editor: James Gibb (submitted 2019-10-05).   Score information: A4, 9 pages, 120 kB   Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: The happiest land
Composer: John Liptrot Hatton
Lyricist: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: ATTB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: Keyboard

First published: 1874 in Novello's Part-Song Book (2nd series), Vol. 7, no. 221
Description: 

Original text and translations

English text

There sat one day in quiet,
By an alehouse on the Rhine,
Four hale and hearty fellows,
And drank the precious wine,
The landlord's daughter filled their cups,
Around the rustic board;
Then sat they all so calm and still,
And spake not one rude word.

But when the maid departed,
A Swabian raised his hand,
And cried, all hot and flushed with wine,
"Long live the Swabian land!
The greatest kingdom upon earth,
Cannot with that compare,
With all the stout and hardy men,
And the nutbrown maidens there."

"Ha!" cried a Saxon laughing,
And dashed his beard with wine,
"I had rather live in Lapland
Than that Swabian land of thine!
The goodliest land on all this earth,
It is the Saxon land:
There have I as many maidens,
As fingers on this hand."

"Hold your tongues, both Swabian and Saxon!
A bold Bohemian cries,
“If there's a heav'n upon this earth,
In Bohemia it lies.
There the tailor blows the flute
And the cobbler blows the horn,
And the miner blows the bugle,
Over mountain gorge and bourn."

And then the landlord's daughter
Up to heaven raised her hand,
And said, "Ye may no more contend:
There lies the happiest land."