But the sorrow that haunted the heart of King David
They could not charm away.
He rose; and in his garden
Walked by the moon alone,
A nightingale hidden in a cypress-tree
Jargoned on and on.
King David lifted his sad eyes
Into the dark-boughed tree –
Tell me, thou little bird that singest,
Who taught my grief to thee?
But the bird in no wise heeded;
And the king in the cool of the moon
Hearkened to the nightingale’s sorrowfulness,
Till all his own was gone.
(Gibbs, Hurd)
HERBERT HOWELLS: from A Garland for de la Mare (c.1957–69)
Lovelocks
[The Lady Caroline]
I watched the Lady Caroline
Bind up her dark and beauteous hair;
Her face was rosy in the glass,
And ’twixt the coils her hands would pass,
White in the candleshine.
Her bottles on the table lay,
Stoppered, yet sweet of violet;
Her image in the mirror stooped
To view those locks as lightly looped
As cherry-boughs in May.
The snowy night lay dim without,
I heard the Waits1 their sweet song sing;
The window smouldered keen with frost;
Yet still she twisted, sleeked and tossed
Her beauteous hair about.
(Bliss, Duke)
The old house (1969)
A very, very old house I know –
And ever so many people go,
Past the small lodge, forlorn and still,
Under the heavy branches, till
Comes the blank wall, and there’s the door.
Go in they do; come out no more.
No voice says aught; no spark of light
Across the threshold cheers the sight;
Only the evening star on high
Less lonely makes a lonely sky,
As, one by one, the people go
Into that very old house I know.
Some one [Some one came knocking]
Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Someone came knocking,
I’m sure – sure – sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But nought there was a-stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl’s call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.
CECIL ARMSTRONG GIBBS: from Three Songs, Op. 15 (1922)
Five eyes (1917/1922)
In Hans’ old Mill his three black cats
Watch the bins for thieving rats.
Whisker and claw, they crouch in the night,
Their five eyes smouldering green and bright:
Squeaks from the flour sacks, squeaks from where
The cold wind stirs on the empty stair,
Squeaking and scampering, everywhere.
Then down they pounce, now in, now out,
At whisking tail, and sniffing snout;
While lean old Hans he snores away
Till peep of light at break of day;
Then up he climbs to his creaking mill,
Out comes his cats all grey with meal –
Jekkel, and Jessup, and one-eyed Jill.
The song of shadows [A song of shadows] (1917/1922)
Sweep thy faint strings, Musician,
With thy long lean hand;
Downward the starry tapers burn,
Sinks soft the waning sand;
The old hound whimpers couched in sleep,
The embers smoulder low;
Across the walls the shadows
Come and go.
Sweep softly thy strings, Musician,
The minutes mount to hours;
Frost on the windless casement weaves
A labyrinth of flowers;
Ghosts linger in the darkening air,
Hearken at the open door;
Music hath called them, dreaming,
Home once more.
CECIL ARMSTRONG GIBBS: from Two Songs, Op. 14 (1918/1920)
The bells
Shadow and light both strove to be
The eight bell-ringers’ company,
As with his gliding rope in hand,
Counting his changes, each did stand;
While rang and trembled every stone,
To music by the bell-mouths blown:
Till the bright clouds that towered on high
Seemed to re-echo cry with cry.
Still swang the clappers to and fro,
When, in the far-spread fields below,
I saw a ploughman with his team
Lift to the bells and fix on them
His distant eyes, as if he would
Drink in the utmost sound he could;
While near him sat his children three,
And in the green grass placidly
Played undistracted on: as if
What music earthly bells might give
Could only faintly stir their dream,
And stillness make more lovely seem.
Soon night hid horses, children, all,
In sleep deep and ambrosial.
Yet, yet, it seemed, from star to star,
Welling now near, now faint and far,
Those echoing bells rang on in dream,
And stillness made even lovelier seem.
CECIL ARMSTRONG GIBBS: from Two Songs, Op. 30 (1920/1922)
Silver
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
(Berkeley, Britten, Duke)
CECIL ARMSTRONG GIBBS: Songs from incidental music to Crossings (1919/1921; rev. for voice and piano 1924)
These four songs form part of the incidental music that Gibbs wrote for de la Mare’s enchanting play that was performed to mark the retirement of the headmaster of The Wick preparatory school in Hove, where Gibbs taught for a while. The first performance took place on 21 June 1919, and there has surely never been such a prestigious production of a play in any school in any land at any time: de la Mare’s libretto was written specially for the occasion; Gibbs and his wife played in the orchestra; Edward Dent was the stage manager; and Adrian Boult conducted! The original scoring of the songs was for voice, three violins, viola, cello, flute and piano; a version for voice and piano was published separately in 1924. The poems have no titles in the play.
Araby
‘Dark-browed Sailor, tell me now,
Where, where is Araby?
The tide’s aflow, the wind ablow,
’Tis I who pine for Araby.’
‘Master, she her spices showers
O’er nine and ninety leagues of sea;
The laden air breathes faint and rare –
Dreams on far distant Araby.’
‘Oh, but Sailor, tell me true;
’Twas Man who mapped this Araby;
Though dangers brew, let me and you
Embark this night for Araby …
’
Wails the wind from star to star;
Rock the loud waves their dirge: and, see!
Through foam and wrack, a boat drift back:
Ah, heart-beguiling Araby!
Now silent falls
[Ann’s cradle song (Lullaby)]
Now silent falls the clacking mill;
Sweet – sweeter smells the briar;
The dew wells big on bud and twig;
The glow-worm’s wrapt in fire.
Then sing, lully, lullay, with me,
And softly, lill-lall-lo, love,
’Tis high time, and wild time,
And no time, no, love!
The Western sky has vailed her rose;
The night-wind to the willow
Sigheth, ‘Now lovely, lean thy head,
Thy tresses be my pillow!’
Then sing, lully, lullay, with me,
And softly, lill-lall-lo, love,
’Tis high time, and wild time,
And no time, no, love!
Cries in the brake, bells in the sea:
The moon o’er moor and mountain
Cruddles1 her light from height to height,
Bedazzles pool and fountain.
Leap, fox; hoot, owl; wail, warbler sweet,
’Tis midnight now’s a-brewing;
The fairy mob is all abroad,
And witches at their wooing …
Then sing, lully, lullay, with me,
And softly, lill-lall-lo, love,
’Tis high time, and wild time,
And no time, no, love!
Now all the roads
[Beggar’s song]
Now all the roads to London Town
Are windy-white with snow;
There’s shouting and cursing,
And snortings to and fro;
But when night hangs her hundred lamps,
And the snickering frost-fires creep,
Then still, O; dale and hill, O;
Snow’s fall’n deep.
The carter cracks his leathery whip;
The ostler shouts Gee-whoa;
The farm dog grunts and sniffs and snuffs;
Bleat sheep; and cattle blow;
Soon Moll and Nan in dream are laid,
And snoring Dick’s asleep;
Then still, O; dale and hill, O;
Snow’s fall’n deep.
The flower
[Candlestick-maker’s song]
Listen, I who love thee well
Have travelled far, and secrets tell;
Cold the moon that gleams thine eyes,
Yet beneath her further skies
Rests, for thee, a paradise.
I have plucked a flower in proof,
Frail, in earthly light, forsooth:
See, invisible it lies
In this palm: now veil thine eyes:
Quaff its fragrancies!
Would indeed my throat had skill
To breathe thee music, faint and still –
Music learned in dreaming deep
In those lands, from Echo’s lip …
’Twould lull thy soul to sleep.
IVOR GURNEY
An epitaph (1919/1938)
Here lies a most beautiful lady,
Light of step and heart was she;
I think she was the most beautiful lady
That ever was in the West Country.
But beauty vanishes; beauty passes;
However rare – rare it be;
And when I crumble, who will remember
This lady of the West Country.
ARTHUR BLISS: Three Romantic Songs (1921/1922)
The hare
In the black furrow of a field
I saw an old witch-hare this night;
And she cocked a lissome ear,
And she eyed the moon so bright,
And she nibbled of the green;
And I whispered ‘Whsst! witch-hare’,
Away like a ghostie o’er the field
She fled, and left the moonlight there.
Lovelocks
See above, under Howells.
The buckle
I had a silver buckle,
I sewed it on my shoe,
And ’neath a sprig of mistletoe
I danced the evening through!
I had a bunch of cowslips,
I hid ’em in a grot,
In case the elves should come by night
And me remember not.
I had a yellow riband,
I tied it in my hair,
That, walking in the garden,
The birds might see it there.
I had a secret laughter,
I laughed it near the wall:
Only the ivy and the wind
May tell of it at all.
BENJAMIN BRITTEN: Tit for Tat (1928–31, rev. 1968/1969)
Britten originally composed these songs while still a teenager and revised them in 1968. At the time of their publication a year later he wrote:
I have chosen those which seem to me as complete an expression as is possible from a composer in his early teens. Once or twice when the fumblings were too obvious, the experienced middle-aged composer has come to the aid of the beginner […] Although I hold no claims whatever for the songs’ importance or originality I do feel that the boy’s vision has a simplicity and clarity which might have given a little pleasure to the great poet, with his unique insight into a child’s mind.
A song of Enchantment
A song of Enchantment I sang me there,
In a green – green wood, by waters fair,
Just as the words came up to me
I sang it under the wild wood tree.
Widdershins1 turned I, singing it low,
Watching the wild birds come and go;
No cloud in the deep dark blue to be seen
Under the thick-thatched branches green.
Twilight came; silence came;
The planet of evening’s silver flame;
By darkening paths I wandered through
Thickets trembling with drops of dew.
But the music is lost and the words are gone
Of the song I sang as I sat alone,
Ages and ages have fallen on me –
On the wood and the pool and the elder tree.
Autumn
There is a wind where the rose was;
Cold rain where sweet grass was;
And clouds like sheep
Stream o’er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.
Nought gold where your hair was;
Nought warm, where your hand was;
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where your face was.
Sad winds where your voice was;
Tears, tears where my heart was;
And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.
(Herbert, Milford)
Silver
See above, under Cecil Armstrong Gibbs.
Vigil
Dark is the night,
The fire burns faint and low,
Hours – days – years
Into grey ashes go;
I strive to read,
But sombre is the glow.
Thumbed are the pages,
And the print is small;
Mocking the winds
That from the darkness call;
Feeble the fire that lends
Its light withal.
O ghost, draw nearer;
Let thy shadowy hair
Blot out the pages
That we cannot share;
Be ours the one last leaf
By Fate left bare!
Let’s Finis scrawl,
And then Life’s book put by;
Turn each to each
In all simplicity:
Ere the last flame is gone
To warm us by.
Tit for tat
&n
bsp; Have you been catching of fish, Tom Noddy?
Have you snared a weeping hare?
Have you whistled, ‘No Nunny’, and gunned a poor bunny,
Or a blinded bird of the air?
Have you trod like a murderer through the green woods,
Through the dewy deep dingles and glooms,
While every small creature screamed shrill to Dame Nature,
‘He comes – and he comes!’?
Wonder I very much do, Tom Noddy,
If ever, when off you roam,
An Ogre from space will stoop a lean face
And lug you home:
Lug you home over his fence, Tom Noddy,
Of thorn-sticks nine yards high,
With your bent knees strung round his old iron gun
And your head dan-dangling by:
And hang you up stiff on a hook, Tom Noddy,
From a stone-cold pantry shelf,
Whence your eyes will glare in an empty stare,
Till you are cooked yourself!
THEODORE CHANLER: Eight Epitaphs (1939)
These eight poems are imaginary epitaphs taken from de la Mare’s short stories ‘Lichen’, ‘Benighted’ and ‘Winter’, published in Ding Dong Bell (1924). Chanler supplied the titles.
Alice Rodd
Here lyeth our infant, Alice Rodd;
She were so small,
Scarce aught at all,
But a mere breath of Sweetness sent from God.
Sore we did weepe; our heartes on sorrow set.
Till on our knees
God sent us ease:
And now we weepe no more than we forget.
The Penguin Book of English Song Page 62