The Penguin Book of English Song

by Richard Stokes

  They talk about a time at hand

  When I shall sleep with clover clad,

  And she beside another lad.

  (Gurney, Orr)

  The half-moon westers low (LP 26)

  The half-moon westers low, my love,

  And the wind brings up the rain;

  And wide apart lie we, my love,

  And seas between the twain.

  I know not if it rains, my love,

  In the land where you do lie;

  And oh, so sound you sleep, my love,

  You know no more than I.

  (Berkeley, Burrows)

  In the morning (LP 23)

  In the morning, in the morning,

  In the happy field of hay,

  Oh they looked at one another

  By the light of day.

  In the blue and silver morning

  On the haycock as they lay,

  Oh they looked at one another

  And they looked away.

  (Bax, Finzi)

  The sigh that heaves the grasses (LP 27)

  The sigh that heaves the grasses

  Whence thou wilt never rise

  Is of the air that passes

  And knows not if it sighs.

  The diamond tears adorning

  Thy low mound on the lea,

  Those are the tears of morning,

  That weeps, but not for thee.

  (Burrows)

  Good-bye (ASL 5)

  Oh see how thick the goldcup flowers

  Are lying in field and lane,

  With dandelions to tell the hours

  That never are told again.

  Oh may I squire you round the meads

  And pick you posies gay?

  – ’Twill do no harm to take my arm.

  ‘You may, young man, you may.’

  Ah, spring was sent for lass and lad,

  ’Tis now the blood runs gold,

  And man and maid had best be glad

  Before the world is old.

  What flowers to-day may flower to-morrow,

  But never as good as new.

  – Suppose I wound my arm right round –

  ‘’Tis true, young man, ’tis true.’

  Some lads there are, ’tis shame to say,

  That only court to thieve,

  And once they bear the bloom away

  ’Tis little enough they leave.

  Then keep your heart for men like me

  And safe from trustless chaps.

  My love is true and all for you.

  ‘Perhaps, young man, perhaps.’

  Oh, look in my eyes then, can you doubt?

  – Why, ’tis a mile from town.

  How green the grass is all about!

  We might as well sit down.

  – Ah, life, what is it but a flower?

  Why must true lovers sigh?

  Be kind, have pity, my own, my pretty, –

  ‘Good-bye, young man, good-bye.’

  Fancy’s knell (LP 41)1

  When lads were home from labour

  At Abdon2 under Clee,

  A man would call his neighbour

  And both would send for me.

  And where the light in lances

  Across the mead was laid,

  There to the dances

  I fetched my flute and played.

  Ours were idle pleasures,

  Yet oh, content we were,

  The young to wind their measures,

  The old to heed the air;

  And I to lift with playing

  From tree and tower and steep

  The light delaying,

  And flute the sun to sleep.

  The youth toward his fancy

  Would turn his brow of tan,

  And Tom would pair with Nancy

  And Dick step off with Fan;

  The girl would lift her glances

  To his, and both be mute:

  Well went the dances

  At evening to the flute.

  Wenlock Edge was umbered3,

  And bright was Abdon Burf4,

  And warm between them slumbered

  The smooth green miles of turf;

  Until from grass and clover

  The upshot beam would fade,

  And England over

  Advanced the lofty shade.

  The lofty shade advances,

  I fetch my flute and play:

  Come, lads, and learn the dances

  And praise the tune to-day.

  To-morrow, more’s the pity,

  Away we both must hie,

  To air the ditty,

  And to earth I.

  With rue my heart is laden (ASL 54)

  With rue my heart is laden

  For golden friends I had,

  For many a rose-lipt maiden

  And many a lightfoot lad.

  By brooks too broad for leaping

  The lightfoot boys are laid;

  The rose-lipt girls are sleeping

  In fields where roses fade.

  (Butterworth, Duke, Gurney, Orr)

  GEORGE BUTTERWORTH: A Shropshire Lad (1909–11/1911)

  Of Butterworth’s eighteen extant songs, eleven are settings of Housman. His original intention had been to write one large-scale song cycle from the fourteen poems he had earmarked in his own copy of A Shropshire Lad. By the time of his first MS copy (early 1911), however, he had already jettisoned four of the poems, but still intended to write a single cycle, beginning with ‘O fair to see’ and ending with ‘Bredon Hill’. Eventually, however, he decided to divide the songs into two groups (A Shropshire Lad and Bredon Hill and Other Songs), and added a poem not on the original list (‘On the idle hill of summer’) to the second.

  Loveliest of trees (ASL 2)

  See above, under Somervell.

  When I was one-and-twenty (ASL 13)

  See above, under Somervell.

  Look not in my eyes, for fear (ASL 15)

  Look not in my eyes, for fear

  They mirror true the sight I see,

  And there you find your face too clear

  And love it and be lost like me.

  One the long nights through must lie

  Spent in star-defeated sighs,

  But why should you as well as I

  Perish? gaze not in my eyes.

  A Grecian lad1, as I hear tell,

  One that many loved in vain,

  Looked into a forest well

  And never looked away again.

  There, when the turf in springtime flowers,

  With downward eye and gazes sad,

  Stands amid the glancing showers

  A jonquil2, not a Grecian lad.

  (Berkeley, Ireland)

  Think no more, lad (ASL 49)

  See above, under Somervell.

  The lads in their hundreds (ASL 23)

  See above, under Somervell.

  Is my team ploughing (ASL 27)

  See above, under Vaughan Williams.

  GEORGE BUTTERWORTH: ‘Bredon Hill’ and Other Songs (1910–11/1912)

  Bredon Hill

  See above, under Somervell.

  Oh fair enough are sky and plain (ASL 20)

  Oh fair enough are sky and plain,

  But I know fairer far:

  Those are as beautiful again

  That in the water are;

  The pools and rivers wash so clean

  The trees and clouds and air,

  The like on earth was never seen,

  And oh that I were there.

  These are the thoughts I often think

  As I stand gazing down

  In act upon the cressy brink

  To strip1 and dive and drown;

  But in the golden-sanded brooks

  And azure meres I spy

  A silly lad that longs and looks

  And wishes he were I.

  When the lad for longing sighs (ASL 6)

  When the lad for longing sighs,

  Mute and dull
of cheer and pale,

  If at death’s own door he lies,

  Maiden, you can heal his ail.

  Lovers’ ills are all to buy:

  The wan look, the hollow tone,

  The hung head, the sunken eye,

  You can have them for your own.

  Buy them, buy them: eve and morn

  Lovers’ ills are all to sell.

  Then you can lie down forlorn;

  But the lover will be well.

  On the idle hill of summer (ASL 35)

  See above, under Somervell.

  With rue my heart is laden (ASL 54)

  See above, under Vaughan Williams.

  JOHN IRELAND: The Land of Lost Content: Six Songs from Housman’s ‘A Shropshire Lad’ (1920–21/1921)

  Peter Pears writes on the sleeve of his LP recording of The Land of Lost Content (Argo):

  Of all the Housman settings, and there are many, Ireland’s are the best; his edgy pessimistic nature matched the poet’s perfectly. The Land of Lost Content is among the earlier and least introvert of them; the vocal line is freer and more lyrical than it was to become in his later Housman settings and the piano writing clearer. Ireland was a decent pianist; most of his work involves a piano, whether alone or with voice and instruments, and when I sang these songs with him in his seventies, he attacked the keys with great brio even if by then his joints had grown a bit stiff! He meant his harmonic decorations to be heard and each added note is intended to be expressive. Ireland had almost an obsession with some of his own phrases; the descending passage on the piano which follows the words ‘Happy is the lover’ in the last song of The Land of Lost Content is one of them. It appears again in ‘The trellis’ and its spirit haunts ‘Friendship in misfortune’. It was originally the main ritornello of his setting of Sidney’s ‘My true love hath my heart’.

  Ireland’s The Land of Lost Content dates from 1920–21 and takes its title from the first line of the second verse of ‘Into my heart an air that kills’, a poem, not set by Ireland, that he wished to print at the head of the cycle. Having applied to Housman for permission, Ireland received a letter from the poet, dated 17 March 1921, in which he gave the composer permission ‘to set to music all the poems he wishes, but he must not print No. 50 as a motto; nor No. 40, which is what he means’. (Ireland had confused the numbering.) Ireland must also have written Housman another letter about royalties, for three days later the composer received a reply which shows the poet in more indulgent mood: ‘I do not want revenue from gramophone and mechanical rights, and Mr Ireland is welcome to as much of it as his publisher will let him have. I hope it may be sufficient to console him for not being allowed to print the poem he wants.’

  The Lent lily1 (ASL 29)

  ’Tis spring; come out to ramble

  The hilly brakes around,

  For under thorn and bramble

  About the hollow ground

  The primroses are found.

  And there’s the windflower2 chilly

  With all the winds at play,

  And there’s the Lenten lily

  That has not long to stay

  And dies on Easter day.

  And since till girls go maying3

  You find the primrose still,

  And find the windflower playing

  With every wind at will,

  But not the daffodil,

  Bring baskets now, and sally

  Upon the spring’s array,

  And bear from hill and valley

  The daffodil away

  That dies on Easter day.

  (Gurney, Orr)

  Ladslove

  See above, under Butterworth (‘Look not in my eyes, for fear’).

  Goal and wicket (ASL 17)

  Twice a week the winter thorough

  Here stood I to keep the goal:

  Football then was fighting sorrow

  For the young man’s soul.

  Now in Maytime to the wicket

  Out I march with bat and pad:

  See the son of grief at cricket

  Trying to be glad.

  Try I will; no harm in trying:

  Wonder ’tis how little mirth

  Keeps the bones of man from lying

  On the bed of earth.

  (Finzi, Gurney)

  The vain desire (ASL 33)

  If truth in hearts that perish

  Could move the powers on high,

  I think the love I bear you

  Should make you not to die.

  Sure, sure, if stedfast meaning,

  If single1 thought could save,

  The world might end to-morrow,

  You should not see the grave.

  This long and sure-set liking,

  This boundless will to please,

  – Oh, you should live for ever

  If there were help in these.

  But now, since all is idle,

  To this lost heart be kind,

  Ere to a town you journey

  Where friends are ill to find.

  The encounter

  See above, under Somervell (‘The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread’).

  Epilogue (ASL 57)

  You smile upon your friend to-day,

  To-day his ills are over;

  You hearken to the lover’s say,

  And happy is the lover.

  ’Tis late to hearken, late to smile,

  But better late than never:

  I shall have lived a little while

  Before I die for ever.

  IVOR GURNEY: Ludlow and Teme, for tenor, string quartet and piano (1923)

  When smoke stood up from Ludlow (1919) (ASL 7)

  When smoke stood up from Ludlow,

  And mist blew off from Teme,1

  And blithe afield to ploughing

  Against the morning beam

  I strode beside my team,

  The blackbird in the coppice

  Looked out to see me stride,

  And hearkened as I whistled

  The trampling team beside,

  And fluted and replied:

  ‘Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;

  What use to rise and rise?

  Rise man a thousand mornings

  Yet down at last he lies,

  And then the man is wise.’

  I heard the tune he sang me,

  And spied his yellow bill;

  I picked a stone and aimed it

  And threw it with a will:

  Then the bird was still.

  Then my soul within me

  Took up the blackbird’s strain,

  And still beside the horses

  Along the dewy lane

  It sang the song again:

  ‘Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;

  The sun moves always west;

  The road one treads to labour

  Will lead one home to rest,

  And that will be the best.’

  (Moeran, Orr)

  Far in a western brookland (1919) (ASL 52)

  Far in a western brookland1

  That bred me long ago

  The poplars stand and tremble

  By pools I used to know.

  There, in the windless night-time,

  The wanderer, marvelling why,

  Halts on the bridge to hearken

  How soft the poplars sigh.

  He hears: no more remembered

  In fields where I was known,

  Here I lie down in London

  And turn to rest alone.

  There, by the starlit fences,

  The wanderer halts and hears

  My soul that lingers sighing

  About the glimmering weirs.

  (Bax, Moeran)

  ’Tis time, I think (1919) (ASL 39)

  ’Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town1

  The golden broom should blow;

  The hawthorn sprinkled up and down

  Should charge the land with snow.

  Spring will not wait the loiterer’s tim
e

  Who keeps so long away;

  So others wear the broom and climb

  The hedgerows heaped with may2.

  Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,

  Gold that I never see;

  Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge

  That will not shower on me.

  (Ireland, Moeran, Orr)

  Ludlow fair

  See above, under Somervell (‘The lads in their hundreds’).

  On the idle hill of summer

  See above, under Somervell.

  When I was one-and-twenty

  See above, under Somervell.

  The Lent lily

  See above, under Ireland.

  IVOR GURNEY: The Western Playland (and of sorrow), for baritone, string quartet and piano (1926)

  Reveille (1921) (ASL 4)

  Wake: the silver dusk returning

  Up the beach of darkness brims,

  And the ship of sunrise burning

  Strands upon the eastern rims.

  Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,

  Trampled to the floor it spanned,

  And the tent of night in tatters

  Straws1 the sky-pavilioned land.

  Up, lad, up, ’tis late for lying: