What lovely things Thy hand hath made, The smooth-plumed bird In its emerald shade, The seed of the grass, The speck of stone Which the wayfaring ant Stirs - and hastes on! Though I should sit By some tarn [in thy hills]1, Using its ink As the spirit wills To write of Earth's wonders, Its live, willed things, Flit would the ages On soundless wings Ere unto Z2 My pen drew nigh; Leviathan told, And the honey-fly; And still would remain My wit to try - My worn reeds broken, The [dark]1 tarn dry, All words forgotten - Thou, Lord, and I.
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View original text (without footnotes)1 omitted by Howells.
2 pronounced zed
Authorship:
- by Walter De la Mare (1873 - 1956), "The scribe", from Motley and Other Poems, first published 1918 [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 Ivor (Bertie) Gurney (1890 - 1937), "The scribe", 1918, published 1938 [ voice and piano ], from A Second Volume of Ten Songs, no. 9, London: Oxford University Press [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Herbert Norman Howells (1892 - 1983), "The scribe" [ chorus ], partsong [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 26
Word count: 103