Monday Music: I Have Loved Flowers That Fade (Gerald Finzi)

April is National Poetry Month and during the month of April, Monday Music is featuring musical settings for works of poetry. Robert Bridges was a practicing physician in London as well as a poet. He was England's poet laureate from 1913 until his death in 1930. His poetry inspired many composers of his day. Choral composer Gerald Finzi wrote musical settings of "Seven Poems by Robert Bridges." "I Have Loved Flowers That Fade" is one of those poems.

 

                                I Have Loved Flowers That Fade
                                by Robert Bridges

                                I have loved flowers that fade,
                                Within whose magic tents
                                Rich hues have marriage made
                                With sweet unmemoried scents:
                                honeymoon delight–
                                A joy of love at sight,
                                That ages in an hour–
                                My song be like a flower!

                                I have loved airs that die
                                Before their charm is writ
                                Along a liquid sky
                                Trembling to welcome it.
                                Notes, that with pulse of fire
                                Proclaim the spirit’s desire,
                                Then die, and are nowhere–
                                My song be like an air!

                                Die, song, die like a breath,
                                And wither as a bloom;
                                Fear not a flowery death,
                                Dread not an airy tomb!
                                Fly with delight, fly hence!
                                ’Twas thine love’s tender sense
                                To feast; now on thy bier
                                Beauty shall shed a tear.

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