Songs

How sweet the answer

by Benjamin Britten

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Text

How sweet the answer
English source: Thomas Moore

How sweet the answer Echo makes
To music at night;
When rous’d by the lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away, o’er lawns and lakes,
Goes answ’ring light.

Yet love hath echoes truer far,
And far more sweet,
Than e’er beneath the moonlight’s star,
Of horn, or lute, or soft guitar,
The songs repeat.

’Tis when the sigh, in youth sincere,
And only then
The sigh, that’s breath’d for one to hear,
Is by that one, that only dear,
Breath’d back again.

Composer

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music,…

Poet

Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of "The Minstrel Boy" and "The Last Rose of Summer". He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death. In…

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