Women Have Loved Before

"Women Have Loved Before" is the second song in Jake Heggie's song cycle Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia.

Date: 1999Composer: Jake HeggieText: Edna St. Vincent MillaySong Collection: Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia

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Text

Women Have Loved Before
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I only in such utter, ancient way
Do suffer love; in me alone survive
The unregenerate passions of a day
When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread,
Heedless and willful, took their knights to bed.

Sheet Music

Music of Jake Heggie

Composer(s): Jake Heggie

Buy via Bill Holab Music

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