Sing, Ballad-singer, raise a hearty tune; Make me forget that there was ever a one I walked with in the meek light of the moon When the day's work was done. Rhyme, Ballad-rhymer, start a country song; Make me forget that she whom I loved well Swore she would love me dearly, love me long, Then - what I cannot tell! Sing, Ballad-singer, from your little book; Make me forget those heart-breaks, achings, fears; Make me forget her name, her sweet sweet look - Make me forget her tears.
Casterbridge Fair
Song Cycle by Andrew Downes (1950 - 2023)
1. The Ballad Singer  [sung text not yet checked]
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "The Ballad-Singer", appears in Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses, in At Casterbridge Fair, no. 1
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First published in Cornhill Magazine, April 1902, revised 1909Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
2. Former beauties  [sung text checked 1 time]
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.
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "Former beauties", appears in Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses, in At Casterbridge Fair, no. 2, first published 1909
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]3. A Wife Waits  [sung text checked 1 time]
Will's at the dance in the Club-room below, Where the tall liquor-cups foam; I on the pavement up here by the Bow, Wait, wait, to steady him home. Will and his partner are treading a tune, Loving companions they be; Willy, before we were married in June, Said he loved no one but me; Said he would let his old pleasures all go Ever to live with his Dear. Will's at the dance in the Club-room below, Shivering I wait for him here.
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "A Wife Waits", appears in Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses, in At Casterbridge Fair, no. 6, first published 1909
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Note: A "bow" is a curved corner by a cross-street.Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
4. After the Club Dance  [sung text checked 1 time]
Black'on frowns east on Maidon, And westward to the sea, But on neither is his frown laden With scorn, as his frown on me! At dawn my heart grew heavy, I could not sip the wine, I left the jocund bevy And that young man o' mine. The roadside elms pass by me, - Why do I sink with shame When the birds a-perch there eye me? They, too, have done the same!
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "After the Club-Dance", appears in Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses, in At Casterbridge Fair, no. 3, first published 1909
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]5. After the Fair  [sung text checked 1 time]
The singers are gone from the Cornmarket-place With their broadsheets of rhymes, The street rings no longer in treble and bass With their skits on the times, And the Cross, lately thronged, is a dim naked space That but echoes the stammering chimes. From Clock-corner steps, as each quarter ding-dongs, Away the folk roam By the "Hart" and Grey's Bridge into byways and "drongs," Or across the ridged loam; The younger ones shrilling the lately heard songs, The old saying, "Would we were home." The shy-seeming maiden so mute in the fair Now rattles and talks, And that one who looked the most swaggering there Grows sad as she walks, And she who seemed eaten by cankering care In statuesque sturdiness stalks. And midnight clears High Street of all but the ghosts Of its buried burghees, From the latest far back to those old Roman hosts Whose remains one yet sees, Who loved, laughed, and fought, hailed their friends, drank their toasts At their meeting-times here, just as these!
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "After the Fair", appears in Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses, in At Casterbridge Fair, no. 7, first published 1909
See other settings of this text.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]