This is a song cycle consisting of seven songs with lyrics taken from Elizabethan poetry.
Fun Facts:
1) Roger Quilter wrote a number of art songs throughout his life, and he favored Elizabethan texts for his inspiration and lyrics.
2) This is the seventh and final song in the song cycle.
Fain would I change
that note
To which fond Love hath charm'd me,
Long, long to sing by rote,
Fancying that
that harm'd me:
Yet when this thought
doth come
'Love is the perfect sum
Of all delight!'
I have no other choice
Either for pen or voice
To sing or write.
O Love! they wrong
thee much
That say thy fruit
is bitter,
When thy rich fruit is such
As nothing can be sweeter.
Fair house of joy
and bliss,
Where truest pleasure is,
I do adore thee:
I know thee what thou art,
I serve thee with my heart,
And fall before thee.