by Mary Gladys Meredith Webb (1881 - 1927)
Dust
Language: English
On burning ploughlands, faintly blue with wheat, A three-horse roller toils, the wandering dust A nimbus round it. Shadow-coloured hills Huddle beyond -- hump-shouldered, kingly-headed Or eel-shaped; sinister, tortured -- waiting still, Beneath the purposeful, secretive sky, The multitudinous years That soon or late will melt them. So I have felt them In all their static beauty only fit for tears, Like those that toil along the blood-red weald With their own death-dust round them for sole glory Under the falcon wings Of dawn, the red night's carrion-swoop, The intolerable emptiness of air. Long, long ago I thought on all these things: Long, long ago I loved them.
Authorship:
- by Mary Gladys Meredith Webb (1881 - 1927), "Dust", appears in Poems and The Spring of Joy, first published 1928 [author's text not yet checked 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 Bernard James Naylor (1907 - 1986), "Dust", 1947 [ low voice and piano ], from Three Songs of Regret [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2008-08-21
Line count: 17
Word count: 106