by William Sharp (1855 - 1905), as Fiona Macleod
The singer in the woods
Language: English
"Were Memory but a voice...." Where moongrey-thistled dunes divide the woods from the sea Sometimes a phantom drifts, like smoke, from tree to tree: His voice is as the thin faint song when the wind wearily Sighs in the grass, and sighing, dies: barely it comes to me. Sometimes I hear the sighing voice along the shadowy shore; Sometimes wave-borne it comes, as when on labouring oar Dying men sigh once, and die, at the closing of the door They hear below the muffled tides or the dull drowning roar. Sometimes he passes through the caves where twilight dies; His voice like mist from a valley then doth rise, Or, in a windy flight of gathered sighs, Is blown like perishing smoke against the midnight skies. But oftenest in the dark woods I hear him sing Dim, half-remembered things, where the old mosses cling To the old trees, and the faint wandering eddies bring The phantom echoes of a phantom Spring. Lost in the dark gulf of the woods, his song sinks low: I listen: and hear only the long, inevitable, slow Falling of wave on wave, the sighing flow: In the silence I hear my heart sobbing its old woe.
Authorship:
- by William Sharp (1855 - 1905), as Fiona Macleod, "The singer in the woods", appears in From the Hills of Dream, first published 1901 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Granville Ransome Bantock, Sir (1868 - 1946), "The singer in the woods", published 1930 [ voice and piano ], song for children [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2008-08-18
Line count: 21
Word count: 202