For baritone and piano. Autograph music manuscript, in pencil, dated, in Britten's hand: 'April 6th 1965' (f. 24).
The title page (f. 1) shows faint traces of the work's original title ('Songs & Sentences') which Britten erased before writing 'Songs & Proverbs'. The texts, from William Blake, were 'selected by Peter Pears'. The title page is also signed by Britten and includes, at the top of the folio, his dedication to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: 'For Dieter - the past and the future'.
The rejected term 'Sentences' is also used (f. 1v) in Britten's list of the the texts, which alternate between passages from Proverbs of Hell (in the final extract, from Auguries of Innocence) and poems from the Songs of Experience.
- 'Sentence[s] I': 'The pride of the peacock...' (f. 2-2v);
- 'London' (ff. 2v-4v);
- 'Sentences II': 'Prisons are built with stones of law...' (f. 4v);
- 'The Chimney-Sweeper' (ff. 4v-6);
- 'Sentences III': 'The bird a nest...' (f. 6v);
- 'A Poison-Tree' (ff. 6v-9), of which ff. 7v-9 are 'discarded' (see pencil notes by Britten-Pears Library at the bottom of each page);
- for the revised section of 'A Poison-Tree', see ff. 10v-14 (of which, f. 13 is scored in blue ink);
- 'Sentences IV': 'Think in the morning...' (f. 14);
- 'The Tyger' (ff. 14v-16v);
- 'Sentences V': 'The tygers of wrath...' (f. 17);
- 'The Fly' (ff. 17v-19);
- 'Sentences VI' (f. 19-19v);
- 'Ah! Sun-flower' (ff. 19v-22);
- 'Sentences VII': 'To see a world in a grain of sand...' (f. 22);
- 'Every Night and every Morn' (ff. 22-24).
- f. 25-25v comprises draft material relating to 'Every Night and every Morn'.
Britten has added a brief footnote to Rosamund [Strode], copyist, on f. 11v.