If I had but two little wings (Henry Thomas Smart)

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  • (Posted 2023-12-08)  CPDL #77966:     
Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-12-08).   Score information: Letter, 8 pages, 399 kB   Copyright: Personal
Edition notes:

General Information

Title: If I had but two little wings
Composer: Henry Thomas Smart
Lyricist: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB, minor B divisi
Genre: SecularPartsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1872 Tonic Sol-Fa Agency
Description: 

External websites:

Original text and translations

English.png English text

If I had but two little wings
And were a little feathery bird,
To you I’d fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here.

But in my sleep to you I fly:
I’m always with you in my sleep!
The world is all one’s own.
But then one wakes, and where am I?
All, all alone.

Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:
So I love to wake ere break of day:
For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while ’tis dark, one shuts one’s lids,
And still dreams on.