The Penguin Book of English Song

by Richard Stokes

  As it is, plenty;

  As it’s admitted

  The children happy

  And the car, the car

  That goes so far,

  And the wife devoted:

  To this as it is,

  To the work and the banks

  Let his thinning hair

  And his hauteur

  Give thanks, give thanks.

  All that was thought

  As like as not, is not;

  When nothing was enough

  But love, but love,

  And the rough future

  Of an intransigeant nature,

  And the betraying smile,

  Betraying, but a smile:

  That that is not, is not;

  Forget, forget.

  Let him not cease to praise,

  Then, his lordly days;

  Yes, and the success

  Let him bless, let him bless:

  Let him see in this

  The profit larger

  And the sin venial2,

  Lest he see as it is

  The loss as major

  And final, final.

  BENJAMIN BRITTEN

  To lie flat on the back (1937/1997)1

  To lie flat on the back with the knees flexed

  And sunshine on the soft receptive belly,

  Or face down, the insolent spine relaxed,

  No more compelled to cower or to bully,

  Is good; and good to see them passing by

  Below on the white sidewalk in the heat,

  The dog, the lady with parcels, and the boy:

  There is the casual life outside the heart.

  Yes, we are out of sight and earshot here.

  Are you aware what weapon you are loading,

  To what that teasing talk is quietly leading?

  Our pulses count but do not judge the hour.

  Who are you with, from whom you turn away,

  At whom you dare not look? Do you know why?

  Song

  [Fish in the unruffled lakes] (1937/1947)1

  Fish in the unruffled lakes

  Their swarming colours wear,

  Swans in the winter air

  A white perfection have,

  And the great lion walks

  Through his innocent grove;

  Lion, fish and swan

  Act, and are gone

  Upon Time’s toppling wave.

  We till shadowed days are done,

  We must weep and sing

  Duty’s conscious wrong,

  The Devil in the clock,

  The goodness carefully worn

  For atonement or for luck;

  We must lose our loves,

  On each beast and bird that moves

  Turn an envious look.

  Sighs for folly done and said

  Twist our narrow days;

  But I must bless, I must praise

  That you, my swan, who have

  All gifts that to the swan

  Impulsive Nature gave,

  The majesty and pride,

  Last night should add

  Your voluntary love.

  BENJAMIN BRITTEN: Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson (1937–9/1980)1

  Some say that love’s a little boy

  [O tell me the truth about love]2

  Some say that love’s a little boy

  And some say he’s a bird,

  Some say he makes the world go round

  And some say that’s absurd:

  But when I asked the man next door

  Who looked as if he knew,

  His wife was very cross indeed

  And said it wouldn’t do.

  Does it look like a pair of pyjamas

  Or the ham in a temperance hotel,

  Does its odour remind one of llamas

  Or has it a comforting smell?

  Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is

  Or soft as eiderdown fluff,

  Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?

  O tell me the truth about love.

  [Our history books refer to it

  In cryptic little notes,

  And it’s a common topic on

  The Transatlantic boats;

  I’ve found the subject mentioned in

  Accounts of suicides,

  And even seen it scribbled on

  The backs of railway-guides.

  Does it howl like an angry Alsatian,

  Or boom like a military band?

  Could one give a first-class imitation

  On a saw or a Steinway Grand?

  Is its singing at parties a riot?

  Does it only like Classical stuff?

  Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?

  O tell me the truth about love.]

  I looked inside the summer-house,

  It wasn’t ever there,

  I tried the Thames at Maidenhead

  And Brighton’s bracing air;

  I don’t know what the blackbird sang

  Or what the tulip said;

  But it wasn’t in the chicken-run

  Or underneath the bed.

  Can it pull extraordinary faces?

  Is it usually sick on a swing?

  Does it spend all its time at the races

  Or fiddling with pieces of string?

  Has it views of its own about money?

  Does it think Patriotism enough?

  Are its stories vulgar but funny?

  O tell me the truth about love.

  Your feelings when you meet it, I

  Am told you can’t forget.

  I’ve sought it since I was a child

  But haven’t found it yet;

  I’m getting on for thirty-five,

  And still I do not know

  What kind of creature it can be

  That bothers people so.3

  When it comes, will it come without a warning

  Just as I’m picking my nose?

  Will it knock on my door in the morning

  Or tread in the bus on my toes?

  Will it come like a change in the weather?

  Will its greeting be courteous or rough?

  Will it alter my life altogether?

  O tell me the truth about love.

  Funeral blues1

  Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

  Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

  Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

  Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

  Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

  Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

  Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

  Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

  He was my North, my South, my East and West,

  My working week and my Sunday rest,

  My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

  I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

  The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

  Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

  Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

  For nothing now can ever come to any good.

  (Horder, Rorem)

  Johnny1

  O the valley in the summer where I and my John

  Beside the deep river would walk on and on,

  While the grass at our feet and the birds up above

  Argued so sweetly on reciprocal love,

  And I leaned on his shoulder; ‘O Johnny, let’s play’;

  But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

  O that Friday near Christmas as I well recall

  When he went to the Charity Matinee Ball,

  The floor was so smooth and the band was so loud

  And Johnny so handsome I felt so proud;

  ‘Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let’s dance till it’s day’;

  But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

  Shall I ever forget
at the Grand Opera

  When music poured out of each wonderful star?

  Diamonds and pearls they hung dazzling down

  Over each silver or golden silk gown;

  ‘O John I’m in heaven,’ I whispered to say:

  But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

  O but he was as fair as a garden in flower,

  As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,

  When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade

  O his eyes and his smile they went straight to my heart;

  ‘O marry me, Johnny, I’ll love and obey’:

  But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

  O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,

  You’d the sun on one arm and the moon on the other,

  The sea it was blue and the grass it was green,

  Every star rattled a round tambourine;

  Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay:

  But you frowned like thunder and you went away.

  Calypso1

  Driver drive faster and make a good run

  Down the Springfield Line under the shining sun.

  Fly like the aeroplane, don’t pull up short

  Till you brake for Grand Central Station, New York.

  For there in the middle of that waiting-hall

  Should be standing the one that I love best of all.

  If he’s not there to meet me when I get to town,

  I’ll stand on the side-walk with tears rolling down.

  For he is the one that I love to look on,

  The acme of kindness and perfection.

  He presses my hand and he says he loves me

  Which I find an admirable peculiarity.

  The woods are bright green on both sides of the line;

  The trees have their loves though they’re different from mine.

  But the poor fat old banker in the sun-parlor car

  Has no one to love him except his cigar.

  If I were the head of the Church or the State

  I’d powder my nose and just tell them to wait.

  For love’s more important and powerful than

  Even a priest or a politician.

  BENJAMIN BRITTEN Anthem for St Cecilia’s Day [Hymn to St Cecilia] for five-part chorus and unaccompanied solos (1942)1

  I

  In a garden shady this holy lady

  With reverent cadence and subtle psalm,

  Like a black swan as death came on

  Poured forth her song in perfect calm:

  And by ocean’s margin this innocent virgin

  Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer,

  And notes tremendous from her great engine

  Thundered out on the Roman air.

  Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited,

  Moved to delight by the melody,

  White as an orchid she rode quite naked

  In an oyster shell on top of the sea;

  At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing

  Came out of their trance into time again,

  And around the wicked in Hell’s abysses

  The huge flame flickered and eased their pain.

  Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

  To all musicians, appear and inspire:

  Translated Daughter, come down and startle

  Composing mortals with immortal fire.

  II

  I cannot grow;

  I have no shadow

  To run away from,

  I only play.

  I cannot err;

  There is no creature

  Whom I belong to,

  Whom I could wrong.

  I am defeat

  When it knows it

  Can now do nothing

  By suffering.

  All you lived through,

  Dancing because you

  No longer need it

  For any deed.

  I shall never be

  Different. Love me.

  III

  O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall,

  Calm spaces unafraid of wear or weight,

  Where Sorrow is herself, forgetting all

  The gaucheness of her adolescent state,

  Where Hope within the altogether strange

  From every outworn image is released,

  And Dread born whole and normal like a beast

  Into a world of truths that never change:

  Restore our fallen day; O re-arrange.

  O dear white children casual as birds,

  Playing among the ruined languages,

  So small beside their large confusing words,

  So gay against the greater silences

  Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,

  Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,

  O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,

  Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,

  Weep for the lives your wishes never led.

  O cry created as the bow of sin

  Is drawn across our trembling violin.

  O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.

  O law drummed out by hearts against the still

  Long winter of our intellectual will.

  That what has been may never be again.

  O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath

  Of convalescents on the shores of death.

  O bless the freedom that you never chose.

  O trumpets that unguarded children blow

  About the fortress of their inner foe.

  O wear your tribulation like a rose.

  ELISABETH LUTYENS: from Two Songs (1942)

  As I walked out one evening

  As I walked out one evening,

  Walking down Bristol Street,

  The crowds upon the pavement

  Were fields of harvest wheat.

  And down by the brimming river

  I heard a lover sing

  Under the arch of the railway:

  ‘Love has no ending.

  ‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you

  Till China and Africa meet,

  And the river jumps over the mountain

  And the salmon sing in the street,

  ‘I’ll love you till the ocean

  Is folded and hung up to dry,

  And the seven1 stars go squawking

  Like geese about the sky.

  [‘The years shall run like rabbits,

  For in my arms I hold

  The Flower of the Ages,

  And the first love of the world.’]

  But all the clocks in the city

  Began to whirr and chime:

  ‘O let not Time deceive you,

  You cannot conquer Time.

  [‘In the burrows of the Nightmare

  Where Justice naked is,

  Time watches from the shadow

  And coughs when you would kiss.]

  ‘In headaches and in worry

  Vaguely life leaks away,

  And Time will have his fancy

  To-morrow or to-day.

  ‘Into many a green valley

  Drifts the appalling2 snow;

  Time breaks the threaded dances

  And the diver’s brilliant bow.

  ‘O plunge your hands in water,

  Plunge them in up to the wrist;

  Stare, stare in the basin

  And wonder what you’ve missed.

  [‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,

  The desert sighs in the bed,

  And the crack in the tea-cup opens

  A lane to the land of the dead.

  ‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes

  And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,

  And the Lily-white Boy3 is a Roarer,

  And Jill goes down on her back.]

  ‘O look, look in the mirror,

  O look in your distress;

  Life remains a blessing

  Although you cannot bless.

 
‘O stand, stand at the window

  As the tears scald and start;

  You shall love your crooked neighbour

  With your crooked heart.’

  It was late, late in the evening,

  The lovers they were gone;

  The clocks had ceased their chiming,

  And the deep river ran on.

  (Bennett, Holloway)

  ELISABETH LUTYENS

  Refugee blues (1942)1

  Say this city has ten million souls,

  Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:

  Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.

  Once we had a country and we thought it fair,

  Look in the atlas and you’ll find it there:

  We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

  In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,

  Every spring it blossoms anew:

  Old passports can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that.2

  The consul banged the table and said:

  ‘If you’ve got no passport, you’re officially dead’:

  But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

  Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;

  Asked me politely to return next year:

  But where shall we go today, my dear, but where shall we go today?

  Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said:

  ‘If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread’;

  He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

  Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;

  It was Hitler over Europe, saying: ‘They must die’;

  We were in his mind, my dear, we were in his mind.

  Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,