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


 When friendly summer calls again,
 	Calls again
 Her little fifers to these hills,
 We'll go - we two - to that arched fane
 Of leafage where they prime their bills
 Before they start to flood the plain
 With quavers,, minims, shakes, and trills.
 	'- We'll go', I sing; but who shall say
 	What may not chance before that day!

 And we shall see the waters spring,
 	Waters spring
 	From chinks the scrubby copses crown;
 And we shall trace their oncreeping
 To where the cascade tumbles down
 And sends the bobbing growths aswing,
 And ferns not quite but almost drown.
 	'- We shall', I say; but who may sing
 	Of what another moon will bring!

Input by Ted Perry

2. When I set out for Lyonnesse

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces

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 When I set out for Lyonnesse,
   A hundred miles away,
   The rime was on the spray,
 And starlight lit my lonesomeness
 When I set out for Lyonnesse
   A hundred miles away.

 What would bechance at Lyonnesse
   While I should sojourn there
   No prophet durst declare,
 Nor did the wisest wizard guess
 What would bechance at Lyonnesse
   While I should sojourn there.

 When I came back from Lyonnesse
   With magic in my eyes,
   All marked with mute surmise
 My radiance rare and fathomless,
 When I came back from Lyonnesse
   With magic in my eyes!

Input by Ted Perry

3. Waiting both

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

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A star looks down at me,
And says: "Here I and you
Stand, each in our degree:
What do you mean to do, -
  Mean to do?"

I say: "For all I know,
Wait, and let Time go by,
Till my change come." - "Just so,"
The star says: "So mean I: -
  So mean I."

First published in London Mercury November 1924

4. The phantom

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces


Queer are the ways of a man I know:
  He comes and stands
  In a careworn craze,
  And looks at the sands
  And the seaward haze
  With moveless hands
  And face and gaze,
  Then turns to go...
And what does he see when he gazes so?

They say he sees as an instant thing
  More clear than to-day,
  A sweet soft scene
  That once was in play
  By that briny green;
  Yes, notes alway
  Warm, real, and keen,
  What his back years bring -
A phantom of his own figuring.

Of this vision of his they might say more:
  Not only there
  Does he see this sight,
  But everywhere
  In his brain - day, night,
  As if on the air
  It were drawn rose bright -
  Yea, far from that shore
Does he carry this vision of heretofore:

A ghost-girl-rider. And though, toil-tried,
  He withers daily,
  Time touches her not,
  But she still rides gaily
  In his rapt thought
  On that shagged and shaly
  Atlantic spot,
  And as when first eyed
Draws rein and sings to the swing of the tide.

5. So I have fared

Subtitle: After reading Psalms XXXIX, XL, etc.

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses


Simple was I and was young;
  Kept no gallant tryst, I;
Even from good words held my tongue,
  Quoniam Tu fecisti!

Through my youth I stirred me not,
  High adventure missed I,
Left the shining shrines unsought;
  Yet - me deduxisti!

At my start by Helicon
  Love-lore little wist I,
Worldly less; but footed on;
  Why? Me suscepisti!

When I failed at fervid rhymes,
  "Shall", I said, "persist I?"
"Dies" (I would add at times)
  "Meos posuisti!"

So I have fared through many suns;
  Sadly little grist I
Bring my mill, or any one's,
  Domine, Tu scisti!

And at dead of night I call;
  "Though to prophets list I,
Which hath understood at all?
  Yea: Quem elegisti?"

6. Rollicum-Rorum

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Wessex Poems and Other Verses

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When Lawyers strive to heal a breach
And Parsons practise what they preach:
Then Boney he'll come pouncing down,
And march his men on London town!
  Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum,
  Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!

When Justices hold equal scales,
And Rogues are only found in jails;
Then Boney he'll come pouncing down,
And march his men on London town!
  Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum,
  Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!

When Rich Men find their wealth a curse,
And fill therewith the Poor Man's purse;
Then Boney he'll come pouncing down,
And march his men on London town!
  Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum,
  Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!

When Husbands with their Wives agree,
And Maids won't wed from modesty;
Then Boney he'll come pouncing down,
And march his men on London town!
  Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum,
  Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!

Note: portions of the poem were first published as part of The Trumpet-Major in Good Words (Jan. - Dec. 1880)

7. To Lizbie Browne

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Poems of the Past and Present

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Dear Lizbie Browne,
Where are you now?
In sun, in rain? -
Or is your brow
Past joy, past pain,
Dear Lizbie Browne?

Sweet Lizbie Browne,
How you could smile,
How you could sing! -
How archly wile
In glance-giving,
Sweet Lizbie Browne!

And, Lizbie Browne,
Who else had hair
Bay-red as yours,
Or flesh so fair
Bred out of doors,
Sweet Lizbie Browne?

When, Lizbie Browne,
You had just begun
To be endeared
By stealth to one,
You disappeared
My Lizbie Browne!

Ay, Lizbie Browne,
So swift your life,
And mine so slow,
You were a wife
Ere I could show
Love, Lizbie Browne.

Still, Lizbie Browne,
You won, they said,
The best of men
When you were wed
Where went you then,
O Lizbie Browne?

Dear Lizbie Browne,
I should have thought,
"Girls ripen fast,"
And coaxed and caught
You ere you passed,
Dear Lizbie Browne!

But, Lizbie Browne,
I let you slip;
Shaped not a sign;
Touched never your lip
With lip of mine,
Lost Lizbie Browne!

So, Lizbie Browne,
When on a day
Men speak of me
As not, you'll say,
"And who was he?" -
Yes, Lizbie Browne.

8. The clock of the years

Subtitle: A spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses


    And the Spirit said,
 "I can make the clock of the years go backward,
 But am loth to stop it where you will."
    And I cried, "Agreed
    To that. Proceed:
    It's better than dead!"

    He answered, "Peace;"
 And called her up - as last before me;
 Then younger, younger she grew, to the year
    I first had known
    Her woman-grown,
    And I cried, "Cease! -

    "Thus far is good -
 It is enough - let her stay thus always!"
 But alas for me - He shook his head:
    No stop was there;
    And she waned child-fair,
    And to babyhood.

    Still less in mien
 To my great sorrow became she slowly,
 And smalled till she was nought at all
    In his checkless griff;
    And it was as if
    She had never been.

    "Better", I plained,
 "She were dead as before! The memory of her
 Had lived in me; but it cannot now!"
    And coldly his voice:
    "It was your choice
    To mar the ordained."

9. In a churchyard

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses


    "It is sad that so many of worth,
    Still in the flesh," soughed the yew,
 "Misjudge their lot whom kindly earth
       Secludes from view.

    "They ride their diurnal round
    Each day-span's sum of hours
 In peerless ease, without jolt or bound
       Or ache like ours.

    "If the living could but hear
    What is heard by my roots as they creep
 Round the restful flock, and the things said there, 
       No one would weep."

    "Now set among the wise,"
    They say: "Enlarged in scope,
 That no God trumpet us to rise
       We truly hope."

    I listened to his strange tale
    In the mood that stillness brings,
 And I grew to accept as the day wore pale
       That view of things.

10. Proud songsters

Language: English

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

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The thrushes sing as the sun is going
 [ ... ]

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