Fancy's knell (Housman, set by R. Vaughan Williams, D. Mason, D. Symons) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


When lads come home from labour
At Abdon under Clee
A man would call his neighbour
And both would send for me.
And where the light in lances
Across the mead was laid,
There to the dances
I fetched my flute and played.

Ours were idle pleasures,
Yet oh, content we were,
The young to wind the measures,
The old to heed the air;
And I to lift with playing
From tree and tower and steep
The light delaying,
And flute the sun to sleep.

The youth toward his fancy
Would turn his brow of tan,
And Tom would pair with Nancy
And Dick step off with Fan;
The girl would lift her glances
To his, and both be mute:
Well went the dances
At evening to the flute.

Wenlock Edge was umbered,
And bright was Abdon Burf,
And warm between them slumbered
The smooth green miles of turf;
Until from grass and clover
The upshot beam would fade,
And England over
Advanced the lofty shade.

The lofty shade advances,
I fetch my flute and play:
Come, lads, and learn the dances
And praise the tune today.
To-morrow, more's the pity,
Away we both must hie,
To air the ditty,
And to earth I.

Input by Ted Perry

Authorship

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

Last Poems

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

Daniel Gregory Mason (1873-1953)

Songs of the Countryside

Dom Thomas Symons (1887-1975)

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Along the Field

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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