“Pretty is as pretty does” (Milton Z. Tinker)

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• (Posted 2023-12-13)  CPDL #78183:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-12-13).   Score information: Letter, 8 pages, 405 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: “Pretty is as pretty does”
Composer: Milton Z. Tinker
Lyricist: Alice Cary
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1871 Oliver Ditson & Co.
Description: 

Original text and translations

English text

The spider wears a plain brown dress,
And she’s a steady spinner;
To see her quiet as a mouse,
Going about her silver house,
You would never, never, never guess
The way she gets her dinner.

She looks as if no thought of ill
In all her life had stirred her,
But while she moves with careless tread,
And while she spins her silken thread,
She is planning, planning, planning, still,
The way to do some murder.

My child, who sings this simple lay,
With eyes down-dropped and tender,
Remember the old proverb says,
“That pretty is which pretty does,”
And that worth does not go nor stay,
For poverty nor splendor.

’Tis not the house, and not the dress
That makes the saint or sinner,
To see the spider sit and spin,
Shut with her web of silver in,
You would never, never, never guess
The way she gets her dinner.