Delusive, sightless god (Samuel Webbe)

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• (Posted 2022-01-17)  CPDL #67630: 

Editor: Christopher Shaw (submitted 2022-01-17).   Score information: A4, 7 pages, 330 kB   Copyright: CC BY SA

Edition notes: Includes a keyboard reduction of the a cappella choral score. Please click on the link for preview/playback/PDF download.

General Information

Title: Delusive, sightless god
Composer: Samuel Webbe
Lyricist: James Cawthorn^{create page}
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Glee

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1782 Warren's eighteenth collection
Description: Setting of a portion of Cawthorn's "Abelard to Eloisa".

Original text and translations

English text

Delusive, sightless god of warm desire,
Why would'st thou wish to set a wretch on fire?
Why lives thy soft divinity
Where woe heaves the pale sigh
And anguish loves to glow?
Fly to the mead, the daisy painted vale,
Breathe in its sweets, and melt along the gale.
Fly where gay scenes luxurious youths employ,
Where ev'ry moment steals the wing of joy;
There may'st thou see, low prostrate at thy throne,
Devoted slaves and victims all thy own.
Each village swain the turf-built shrine shall raise,
And kings command whole hecatombs to blaze.
But oh, what conflicts this frail bosom tear,
What griefs I suffer, and what pangs I bear;
Oblivion, be thy blackest plume display'd
O'er all my griefs, and hide me in the shade!