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Archive notice. This is a historical page from the ItalianOpera archive (website online since 1995). Some formatting and links may reflect the original legacy structure.

TESTO DEL LIED

"Sail on, sail on"
di Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark,
Wherever blows the welcome wind;
It cannot lead to scenes more dark,
More sad than those we leave behind.
Each smiling billow seems to say
"Though death beneath our surface be,
Less cold we are, less false than they,
Whose smiling wrecked thy hopes and thee."
Sail on, sail on, through endless space,
Through calm, through tempest, stop no more;
The stormiest sea's a resting-place
To him who leaves such hearts on shore.
Or, if some desert land we meet,
Where never yet false-hearted men
Profaned a world, that else were sweet,
Then rest thee, bark, but not till then.