Browning Festival 2010 - If Thou Must Love Me by Ethan Williams

This piece is the winner of the 2010 edition of the Browning Composition Competition at Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University.
The China Spring Select Voices Choir.

Susan Thrift, Director.
The composer is Ethan Williams, a senior composition major from Bryan, Texas.

If Thou Must Love Me - By Elizabeth B. Browning
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile her look her way
Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of ease on such a day"
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheek dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.