The adieu to the Spring Gardens (William Boyce)

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• (Posted 2023-08-14)  CPDL #74866: 

Editor: Christopher Shaw (submitted 2023-08-14).   Score information: A4, 3 pages, 163 kB   Copyright: CC BY SA

Edition notes: Please click on the link for preview/playback/PDF download. Figured bass realised editorially.

General Information

Title: The adieu to the Spring Gardens
Composer: William Boyce
Lyricist: John Lockman^{create page}
Number of voices: 1v   Voicing: solo high
Genre: Secular, Aria

Language: English
Instruments: Keyboard

First published: 1738
Description: Published in The Musical Entertainer. The Spring Gardens (Vauxhall) were open for public entertainment during the Summer season, early May to late August in the period 1732 to 1859.

Original text and translations

English text

The sun now darts fainter his rays,
The meadows no longer invite,
The wood nymphs are all tripp'd away,
No verdure cheers sweetly the sight.
Then adieu to the pastoral scene,
Where Harmony charmed with her call;
Where pleasure presided as queen,
In the echoing shades of Vauxhall.

Such transports as soul ne'er enjoy'd,
When wafted to th'Elysian plains,
As those which my senses employ'd,
Convey'd to Vauxhall by the Thames.
Such splendours illumined the grove,
My ears drank such rapturous sound,
I seem'd in enchantment to rove,
And deities dancing around.

How sweet 'twas to sit in the maze,
Amid the bright choirs of the fair!
Their glances diffused such a blaze,
I thought Beauty's goddess was there;
Not Venus, whose smiles breed alarms,
And with vain allurements destroy,
But Beauty whose bashfulness charms,
And which when possessed gives true joy.

The maid, to whom honour is dear,
Uncensur'd might take of her glass,
And stray among beaux without fear,
No snake lurking there in the grass.
In blissful Arcadia of old,
Where mirth, wit and innocence join'd,
The swains thus discreetly were bold,
The nymphs were thus prudently kind.

Old Winter with icicles spread
Will soon all his horrors resume;
Those past Spring must lift her fair head,
And Nature exult in fresh bloom.
Thy bow'rs, O Vauxhall, then shall rise
In all the gay pride of the field;
Thy music shall sweetly surprise;
To thee famed Elysium shall yield.