Two Songs , opus 21

by Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889 - 1960)

1. The linnet [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

Upon this leafy bush
With thorns and roses in it,
Flutters a thing of light,
A twittering linnet.
And all the throbbing world
Of dew and sun and air
By this small parcel of life
Is made more fair;
As if each bramble-spray
And mounded gold-wreathed furze,
Harebell and little thyme,
Were only hers;
As if this beauty and grace
Did to one bird belong,
And, at a flutter of wing,
Might vanish in song.

Text Authorship:

by Walter De la Mare (1873 - 1956), "The linnet", appears in Motley and Other Poems, first published 1918

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2. The stranger [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

In the woods as I did walk,
Dappled with the moon's beam,
I did with a Stranger talk,
And his name was Dream.

Spurred his heel, dark his cloak,
Shady-wide his bonnet's brim;
His horse beneath a silvery oak
Grazed as I talked with him.

Softly his breast-brooch burned and shone;
Hill and deep were in his eyes;
One of his hands held mine, and one
The fruit that makes men wise.

Wondrously strange was earth to see,
Flowers white as milk did gleam;
Spread to Heaven the Assyrian Tree,
Over my head with Dream.

Dews were still betwixt us twain;
Stars a trembling beauty shed;
Yet--not a whisper comes again
Of the words he said.

Text Authorship:

by Walter De la Mare (1873 - 1956), "The stranger", appears in The Sunken Garden and Other Poems, first published 1917

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