Tears, Idle Tears
Dedicated to my grandparents Gerald and Francis Grimm
Instrumentation
Tenor (soloist)
SATB
Harp
String Quartet
Duration 5'
Program Notes
Tears, Idle Tears is a short aria for tenor originally composed as the middle
movement of a larger choral work The Splendor Falls, based on poetry of Tennyson.
Here, in each stanza of Tennyson's poem, the tenor soloist reflects on meaningful moments
in life that we remember and try to hold onto, and he ponders the sadness and strangeness
of death. Throughout the poem there is a sense of looking back, and in each refrain, the
choir sings of "the days that are no more." It is a simple, gentle, and beautiful Tennyson
composition, and I hope in this chamber version one feels an appropriate sense of emotional
intimacy and poignancy to his words.
– Daniel Temkin
The following public domain texts are used in this work:
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
Tears, Idle Tears
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a summering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
Copyright © 2020 of Daniel Temkin Music (BMI), All Rights Reserved.