Ivor Gurney: Lights Out (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


 The new moon hangs like an ivory bugle
 In the naked frosty blue;
 And the leaves of the forest, already blackened
 By Winter, are blackened anew.

 The brooks that cut up and increase the forest,
 As if they had never known
 The sun, are roaring with black hollow voices
 Betwixt rage and a moan.

 But still the caravan-hut by the hollies
 Like a kingfisher gleams between:
 Round the mossed old hearths of the charcoal-burners
 First primroses ask to be seen.

 The charcoal-burners are black, but their linen
 Blows white on the line:
 And white the letter the girl is reading
 Under that crescent fine;

 And her brother hidden apart in a thicket,
 Slowly and surely playing
 On a whistle an olden nursery melody,
 Says far more than I am saying.

Input by David Kenneth Smith

2. Scents

Language: English

Authorship

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)


 Today I think only of scents
 Scents dead leaves yield
 Bracken wild carrot seed and the square mustard field
 Scents that arise when the spade wounds the roots of tree,
 rose currant raspberry gout weed
 Rhubarb
 Celery
 The smoke's smell too blowing from where the bonfire burns the waste
 The dead the dangerous and all to sweetness turns
 It is enough to smell to crumble the dark earth
 While the Robin sings over again sad songs of winter mirth

Input by David Kenneth Smith

3. Bright Clouds

Language: English

Authorship

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)


 Bright clouds of May
 Shade half the pond.
 Beyond,
 All but one bay
 Of emerald
 Tall reeds
 Like crisscross bayonets
 Where a bird once called,
 Lies bright as the sun.
 No one heeds.
 The light wind frets
 And drifts the scum
 Of may-blossom.
 Till the moorhen calls
 Again.
 Naught's to be done
 By birds or men.
 Still the may falls.

Input by David Kenneth Smith

4. Lights Out

Language: English

Authorship

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)


 I have come to the borders of sleep,
 The unfathomable deep
 Forest where all must lose
 Their way, however straight,
 Or winding, soon or late;
 They cannot choose.
 Here love ends,
 Despair, ambition ends,
 All pleasure and all trouble,
 Although most sweet or bitter
 Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
 Than tasks most noble.
 There is not any book
 Or face of dearest look
 That I would not turn from now
 To go into the unknown
 I must enter and leave alone
 I know not how.

Input by David Kenneth Smith

5. Will you come?

Language: English

Authorship

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)


Will you come?
Will you come?
Will you ride
So late
At my side?
O, will you come?
Will you come?
Will you come
If the night
Has a moon,
Full and bright?
O, will you come?

Would you come?
Would you come
If the noon
Gave light,
Not the moon?
Beautiful, would you come?

Would you have come?
Would you have come
Without scorning,
Had it been
Still morning?
Beloved, would you have come?

If you come
Haste and come,
Owls have cried;
It grows dark to ride.
Beloved, beautiful, come.

Input by David Kenneth Smith

6. The Trumpet

Language: English

Authorship

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

See other settings of this text


Rise up, rise, up,
and as the trumpet blowing
chases the dreams of men,
As the dawn glowing
the stars that left unlit
the land and water,
Rise up and scatter
the prints of last night's lovers.
Scatter it, scatter it.
While you are listening to the clear horn,
Forget, men, ev'rything on this earth new born
Save that it is lovelier
Than any mysteries
Open your eyes to the air
that has wash'd the eyes of the stars
all the dewy night
Up with the light,
Up with the light,
To the old wars, 
to the old wars arise. 
Arise.

Input by David Kenneth Smith