EDIT: I have re-recorded the cycle and fixed a few small (unnoticeable to most) mistakes; I just want this to be as well done as it can be.

So... what can I say about this? It's (Randomonlooker) last complete composition, a song cycle all written on January the fifth; the last day any of us heard from him. I only found them recently and I thought that I would perform them for him. He already recorded the lute part as he often did; so it's him playing that. I'm singing over it.

Originally the songs were written for him to sing, but I have transposed them to my range and changed the poems to have a female persona rather than a male one... They literally broke me to tears, which is why my voice is so rough here (though this time around I have managed to keep y cool, and so it sounds a little softer, as it should). They're heartbreaking texts, I don't know whether he wrote them or not as they are just so... unlike him.

The music starts off with a short prelude and then the songs begin, none of them are titled and they are all in French; I have translated them, the square brackets just 'define' the vague terms (and so are not sung).

---

(-Prelude-)
-
Black Forests, Sombre houses,
Where the sun seldom shines,
I am glad to have some of your shadows!
They compliment the complaints of a lover!

Since the day that my cruel wit
let my mind realize the arrest of my death,
The clarity [light of day?] was lethal to me,
Yet the Flame and the Day had more charms.
-
Ah! Forget these dangerous woods, --->(actual lyrics 'this dangerous place')
these green shadows,
these sweet shores...
Where the Tircis has [have?] shown me so much love,
Where the Moon drew me a hundred times,
But my heart rebels against my designs
And cannot forget this cruel memory:
Alack! This infedel [heart]
makes me love this place,
And despite my detours,
I always return.
-
Brook, you who nourish these woods,
these brilliant arrays of thousands and thousands of flowers,
I come to you for the last time
To talk to you about my fickleness,

I've received her [death's] message.
Jealous, rendered hopeless by such an obvious insult,
I will no longer disturb your waters with my tears,
Alack! Alack! Because I am dying.
-
Do you want to see me die, contemptable spectre?
Come and give your eyes that horrid pleasure!
The excess of my love, and he [life] of your hate,
Go away for a moment, contain your desire.
But remember this, you horrid being,
Even if I die unhappy, I will have lived with joy.
[the last line is actually 'I will have lived Faithful', though there was a crossed off section that said 'to joy', probably to keep the rhythm and rhyme.]

-(Epilogue)-
I arrived in these woods alone and fearless.
Without shuddering, there I saw Lachesis.
Ah! Is there nothing I can be cautious of?
How is this unfeeling young heart to be pitied!?
I don't seek danger,
But I would at least like to fear it.
-

I doubt I've done the songs justice... Only listening to them makes me break into tears.
Hopefully you will enjoy them.