Rest

• Rest is a part-song (a genre of secular acapella choral song for several voices, similar to a madrigal) written in 1902 with poetry by Christina Rossetti. The song was dedicated to “Members of the Magpie Madrigal Society.”
• At the time this song was composed, singing madrigals and part-songs was a popular British pastime.¹

“Rest” by Christina Rossetti:

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;
Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth;
Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth
With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.
She hath no questions, she hath no replies,
Hush’d in and curtain’d with a blessèd dearth
Of all that irk’d her from the hour of birth;
With stillness that is almost Paradise.
Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her,
Silence more musical than any song;
Even her very heart has ceased to stir:
Until the morning of Eternity
Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;
And when she wakes she will not think it long.

1. Andrew Burn, Essay in accompanying booklet, Vaughan Williams: Over hill, over dale performed by the Holst Singers conducted by Stephen Layton, Hyperion 66777, 1995, compact disc.