[1] It consists of settings of texts by John Donne (1572–1631), adapted from three of the Meditations in his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions.
The titles of the songs are:[2] Peter Pears has said: "Whereas the medievals [sic] for the most part dispensed with any harmonic implications, here the composer has suggested a strong harmonic skeleton behind the solo voice, to fine effect: in the last section the use of different registers of the voice vividly underlines Donne's wonderful text.
[3] Modernised, they read: We cannot bid the fruits come in May, nor the leaves to stick on in December.
There are of them that will give, that will do justice, that will pardon, but they have their own seasons for all these, and he that knows not them, shall starve before that gift come.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were.