Amabel (Hardy, set by G. Finzi) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


I marked her ruined hues,
Her custom-straitened views,
And asked, "Can there indwell
  My Amabel?"

I looked upon her gown,
Once rose, now earthen brown;
The change was like the knell
  Of Amabel.

Her step's mechanic ways
Had lost the life of May's;
Her laugh, once sweet in swell,
  Spoilt Amabel.

I mused: "Who sings the strain
I sang ere warmth did wane?
Who thinks its numbers spell
  His Amabel?" -

Knowing that, though Love cease,
Love's race shows undecrease;
All find in dorp or dell
  An Amabel.

- I felt that I could creep
To some housetop, and weep,
That Time the tyrant fell
  Ruled Amabel!

I said (the while I sighed
That love like ours had died),
"Fond things I'll no more tell
  To Amabel,

"But leave her to her fate,
And fling across the gate,
'Till the Last Trump, farewell,
  O Amabel!'"

Input by Ted Perry

Authorship

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Wessex Poems and Other Verses

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

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)

Before and After Summer

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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