PARADISE IN A DREAM – full set of four

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Cypress Choral Music · PARADISE IN A DREAM – the set of four

LYRICS

Let Me Go

When I come to the end of the road
And the sun has set for me
I want no rites in a gloom filled room
Why cry for a soul set free?
Miss me a little, but not for long
And not with your head bowed low
Remember the love that once we shared
Miss me, but let me go.

For this is a journey we all must take
And each must go alone.
It’s all part of the master plan
A step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick at heart
Go the friends we know.
Laugh at all the things we used to do
Miss me, but let me go.

When I Am Dead, My Dearest

When I am dead my dearest

Sing no sad songs for me

Plant thou no roses at my head

Nor shady cypress tree
Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet

And if thou wilt remember
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not fear the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,

Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,

Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;

Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

My very life again though cold in death:

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

Speak low, lean low
As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Paradise in a Dream

Once in a dream I saw the flowers

That bud and bloom in Paradise;

More fair they are than waking eyes

Have seen in all this world of ours.

And faint the perfume-bearing rose,

And faint the lily on its stem,

And faint the perfect violet

Compared with them.

I heard the songs of Paradise:

Each bird sat singing in his place;

A tender song so full of grace
It soared like incense to the skies.

Each bird sat singing to his mate

Soft cooing notes among the trees:

The nightingale herself were cold

To such as these.

I saw the fourfold River flow,
And deep it was, with golden sand;
It flowed between a mossy land
With murmured music grave and low.

It hath refreshment for all thirst,
For fainting spirits strength and rest:

Earth holds not such a draught as this

From east to west.

The Tree of Life stood budding there,

Abundant with its twelvefold fruits;

Eternal sap sustains its roots,
Its shadowing branches fill the air.

Its leaves are healing for the world,

Its fruit the hungry world can feed,

Sweeter than honey to the taste

And balm indeed.

I saw the gate called Beautiful;
And looked, but scarce could look, within;

I saw the golden streets begin,
And outskirts of the glassy pool.
Oh harps, oh crowns of plenteous stars,

Oh green palm-branches many-leaved—

Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,

Nor heart conceived.

I hope to see these things again,

But not as once in dreams by night;

To see them with my very sight,

And touch, and handle, and attain:

To have all Heaven beneath my feet

For narrow way that once they trod;

To have my part with all the saints,

And with my God.

Fluttered Winds

The splendour of the kindling day,

The splendour of the setting sun,

These move my soul to wend its way, And have done

With all we grasp and toil amongst and say.

The paling roses of a cloud,
The fading bow that arches space,
These woo my fancy toward my shroud,
Toward the place
Of faces veil’d, and heads discrown’d and bow’d.

The nation of the awful stars,
The wandering star whose blaze is brief,

These make me beat against the bars

Of my grief;
My tedious grief, twin to the life it mars.

O fretted heart toss’d to and fro,

So fain to flee, so fain to rest!

All glories that are high or low,

East or west,

Grow dim to thee who art so fain to go.