Former beauties

These market-dames, mid-aged, with lips thin-drawn,
  And tissues sere,
Are they the ones we loved in years agone,
  And courted here?

Are these the muslined pink young things to whom
  We vowed and swore
In nooks on summer Sundays by the Froom,
  Or Budmouth shore?

Do they remember those gay tunes we trod
  Clasped on the green;
Aye; trod till moonlight set on the beaten sod
  A satin sheen?

They must forget, forget! They cannot know
  What once they were,
Or memory would transfigure them, and show
  Them always fair.

by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) , "Former beauties", from Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses, in At Casterbridge Fair, no. 2, published 1909

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

by Andrew Downes (1950-) , "Former beauties", op. 1 no. 2 (1973), from Casterbridge Fair, no. 2.
by Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) , "Former beauties", op. 14 no. 8, published 1933 [tenor and piano], from A Young Man's Exhortation, no. 8.
by Frederic Goossen (1927-) , "Former beauties" [mezzo-soprano, baritone, and piano], from At Casterbridge Fair, no. 2.
by Alfred Matthew Hale (1875-1960) , "Former beauties", op. 27 no. 2 [voice and piano], from At Casterbridge Fair, no. 2.

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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