Gerald Finzi: Till Earth Outwears (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Let me enjoy the earth no less
Because the all-enacting Might
That fashioned forth its loveliness
Had other aims than my delight.

About my path there flits a Fair,
Who throws me not a word or sign;
I'll charm me with her ignoring air,
And laud the lips not meant for mine.

From manuscripts of moving song
Inspired by scenes and dreams unknown
I'll pour out raptures that belong
To others, as they were my own.

And some day hence, towards Paradise
And all its blest - if such should be -
I will lift glad, a far-off eyes,
Though it contain no place for me.

First published in Cornhill Magazine and Putnam's Magazine, both in April 1909

2. In years defaced

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Poems of the Past and Present

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In years defaced and lost, 
Two sat here, transport-tossed,
Lit by a living love
The wilted world knew nothing of:

Scared momently
By gain-givings,
Then hoping things
That could not be.

Of love and us no trace
Abides upon the place;
The sun and shadows wheel,
Season and season sereward steal:

Foul days and fair
Here, too, prevail,
And gust and gale
As everywhere...

But lonely shepherd souls
Who bask amid these knolls
May catch a faery sound
On sleepy noon-tides from the ground:

"O not again
Till Earth outwears
Shall love like theirs
Suffuse this glen!"

3. The Market-Girl

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses

At Casterbridge Fair

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Nobody took any notice of her as she stood on the causey kerb,
All eager to sell her honey and apples and bunches of garden herb;
And if she had offered to give her wares and herself with them too that day,
I doubt if a soul would have cared to take a bargain so choice away.

But chancing to trace her sunburnt grace that morning as I passed nigh,
I went and I said, "Poor maidy dear! -- and will none of the people buy?"
And so it began; and soon we knew what the end of it all must be,
And I found that though no others had bid, a prize had been won by me.

First published in The Venture, 1903, rev. 1909

4. I look into my glass

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Wessex Poems and Other Verses

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I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"

For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.

Input by Ted Perry

5. It never looks like summer

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses


"It never looks like summer here
On Beeny by the sea."
But though she saw its look as drear,
Summer it seemed to me.

It never looks like summer now
Whatever weather's there;
But ah, it cannot anyhow,
On Beeny or elsewhere!

6. At a lunar eclipse

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Poems of the Past and Present


Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line
Of imperturbable serenity.

How shall I link such suncast symmetry
With the torn troubled form I know as thine,
That profile, placid as a brow divine,
With continents of moil and misery?

And can immense Mortality but throw
So small a shade, and Heaven's high human scheme
Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?
Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,
Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,
Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?

7. Life laughs onward

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses


Rambling I looked for an old abode
Where, years back, one had lived I knew;
Its site a dwelling duly showed,
But it was new.

I went where, not so long ago,
The sod had riven two breasts asunder;
Daisies throve gaily there, as though
No grave were under.

I walked along a terrace where
Loud children gambolled in the sun:
The figure that had once sat there
Was missed by none.

Life laughed and moved on unsubdued,
I saw that Old succumbed to Young:
'Twas well my too regretful mood
Died on my tongue.