Sweet Love Rememberʼd (2005)

Sweet Love Remember’d 
Words: William Shakespeare (Sonnet 29)
Music: Roxanna Panufnik

for mezzo or alto & piano

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possesses’d,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
            For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
            That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

This was a private commission - from Dora Black to her husband Jack, on the occasion of their 50th Wedding anniversary.