Ha'nacker Mill (Belloc, set by I. Gurney, M. Plumstead, P. Warlock, H. Brown, G. Fontrier, C. Le Fleming, H. Noble, W. Pasfield) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Sally is gone that was so kindly
Sally is gone from Ha'nacker Hill.
And the Briar grows ever since then so blindly
[ And ever since then the clapper is still,]¹
And the sweeps have fallen from Ha'nacker Mill.

Ha'nacker Hill is in Desolation:
Ruin a-top and a field unploughed.
And Spirits that call on a fallen nation
[ Spirits that loved her calling aloud:]¹
Spirits abroad in a windy cloud.

Spirits that call and no one answers;
Ha'nacker's down and England's done.
Wind and Thistle for pipe and dancers
And never a ploughman under the Sun.
Never a ploughman. Never a one.

View text without footnotes
¹ omitted by Warlock.

Authorship

(Joseph) Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)

Sonnets and Verse (1923)

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

Hubert Sydney Brown (1898-1949)

Gabriel Fontrier (1918-)

Three Choruses to Texts by Hilaire Belloc

Ivor Gurney (1890-1937)

A First Volume of Ten Songs

Christopher Kaye Le Fleming (1908-)

Valley of Arun

Harold Noble (1903-)

William Reginald Pasfield (1909-)

Mary Plumstead (1905-1980)

Peter Warlock (1894-1930) [pseudonym]

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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