O Mistress Mine

 

Settings By

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Robert Baksa (b. 1938)

Judith Lang Zaimont (b. 1945)

Daniel Pederson (Sweet and Twenty )

Text: Shakespeare Twelfth Night Act II, scene iii

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear, your true love's coming
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers' meeting,
Ev'ry wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty;
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

 

 

This piece was performed on Octarium’s The Shakespeare Concert, May 2004.

Daniel Pederson's Sweet and Twenty was performed on Listener's Choice, February 2011.