If it chance your eye offend you, Pluck it out, lad, and be sound: 'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you, And many a balsam grows on ground. And if your hand or foot offend you, Cut it off, lad, and be whole; But play the man, stand up and end you, When your sickness is your soul.
A Shropshire Lad , opus 7
by William Parks Grant (b. 1910)
?. If it chance your eye offend you  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 45, first published 1896
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]?. Loveliest of trees  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy [springs]1 a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the [woodlands]2 I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 2, first published 1896
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Patricia Dillard Eguchi) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- HEB Hebrew (עברית) (Max Mader) , "היפה בעצים", copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
1 Manton: "years"
2 Steele: "woodland"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
?. 'Tis time, I think  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
'Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town The golden broom should blow; The hawthorn sprinkled up and down Should charge the land with snow. Spring will not wait the loiterer's time Who keeps so long away; So others wear the broom and climb The hedgerows heaped with may. Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge, Gold that I never see; Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge That will not shower on me.
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 39, first published 1896
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CHI Chinese (中文) [singable] (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
?. White in the moon the long road lies  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
White in the moon the long road lies, The moon stands blank above; White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love. Still hangs the hedge without a gust, Still, still the shadows stay: My feet upon the moonlit dust Pursue the ceaseless way. The world is round, so travellers tell, And straight though reach the track, Trudge on, trudge on, 'twill all be well, The way will guide one back. But ere the circle homeward hies Far, far must it remove: White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love.
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 36, first published 1896
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Researcher for this page: Ted Perry?. When I was one‑and‑twenty  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
When I was one-and-twenty I heard [a wise man]1 say, "Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free." But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, "The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; 'Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue." And I am two-and-twenty, And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 13, first published 1896
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Patricia Dillard Eguchi) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , "Als ich war einundzwanzig", copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- HEB Hebrew (עברית) (Max Mader) , "כאשר הייתי בן עשרים ואחת", copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
1 Steele: "an old man"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]