by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)
Beeny Cliff
Language: English
O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea, And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free - The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me. The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say, As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day. A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain, And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain, And then the sun burst out anew, and purples prinked the main. - Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky, And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh, And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by? What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore, The woman now is - elsewhere - whom the ambling pony bore, And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "Beeny Cliff", appears in Poems of 1912-1913 [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 Roy Buckle (b. 1926), "Beeny Cliff", published 2001. [text verified 1 time]
- by Betty Roe (b. 1930), "Beeny Cliff", published 2001 [medium-high voice and piano], from Three Dedications, no. 2. [text not verified]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2006-10-11
Line count: 15
Word count: 179