Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax: Three Irish Songs (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


O men from the fields,
Come gently within,
Tread softly, softly,
O men, coming in...

For [m'mhurnin]¹ is going
From me and from you
Where Mary will fold him
With mantle of blue,

From reek of the smoke
And cold of the floor
And peering of things
Across the half-door.

O men from the fields,
Softly, softly come through;
Mary puts round him 
Her mantle of blue.

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¹ pronounce - "ma-vourn-yeen" (editor's note); Weigl substitutes "Mavourneen"

2. Rann of Exile

Language: English

Authorship

Padraic Colum (1881-1972)

Wild Earth

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Nor right, nor left, nor any road I see a comrade face, 
Nor word to lift the heart in me I hear in any place; 
They leave me, who pass by me, to my loneliness and care, 
Without a house to draw my step nor a fire that I might share! 

Ochone, before our people knew the scatt'ring of the dearth, 
Before they saw potatoes rot and melt black in the earth, 
I might have stood in Connacht, on the top of Cruchmaelinn, 
And all around me I would see the hundreds of my kin.

Note: revised in 1960 (not shown)

3. Rann of Wandering

Language: English

Authorship

Padraic Colum (1881-1972)

Wild Earth

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On Saint Bride's day, when it comes, I will throw a sail on the lake, 
And in Kiltimagh of my friends on a fine day I'll awake, 
Where the hounds will go before us, and make music of delight ; 
Where the fires will be piled up, and the tables spread at night ! 

O, my courage will be mounting up until my spirit's so, 
That within a mile of the World's Mouth I will be fain to go : 
Sure the scatt'ring of the mist across leaves no half wish behind, 
And my heart was ever lifted with the lifting of the wind.