The Seal Man (Masefield, set by R. Clarke) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


And he came by her cabin to the west of the road, calling.
There was a strong love came up in her at that,
and she put down her sewing on the table, and "Mother," she says,
"There's no lock, and no key, and no bolt, and no door.
There's no iron, nor no stone, nor anything at all
will keep me this night from the man I love."
And she went out into the moonlight to him,
there by the bush where the flow'rs is pretty, beyond the river.
And he says to her: "You are all of the beauty of the world,
will you come where I go, over the waves of the sea?"
And she says to him: "My treasure and my strength," she says,
"I would follow you on the frozen hills, my feet bleeding."
Then they went down into the sea together,
and the moon made a track on the sea, and they walked down it;
it was like a flame before them. There was no fear at all on her;
only a great love like the love of the Old Ones,
that was stronger than the touch of the fool.
She had a little white throat, and little cheeks like flowers,
and she went down into the sea with her man,
who wasn't a man at all.
She was drowned, of course.
It's like he never thought that she wouldn't bear the sea like himself.
She was drowned, drowned.

Authorship

John Masefield (1878-1967)

A Mainsail Haul

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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