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Housman Songs

Song Cycle by Robert F. Baksa (b. 1938)

1. 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.

Text 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

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Steele: "an old man"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. When the lad for longing sighs  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
When the lad for longing sighs,
 Mute and dull of cheer and pale,
If at death's own door he lies,
 Maiden, you can heal his ail.

Lovers' ills are all to buy:
 The wan look, the hollow tone,
The hung head, the sunken eye,
 You can have them for your own.

Buy them, buy them: eve and morn
 Lovers' ills are all to sell,
Then you can lie down forlorn;
 But the lover will be well.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 6, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. On your midnight pallet lying  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
On your midnight pallet lying,
Listen, and undo the door:
Lads that waste the light in sighing
In the dark should sigh no more;
Night should ease a lover's sorrow;
Therefore, since I go to-morrow,
Pity me before. 

[In]1 the land to which I travel,
The [far]2 dwelling, let me say-
Once, if here the couch is gravel,
[In]1 a kinder bed I lay,
And the [breast]3 the darnel smothers
Rested once upon another's
When it was not [clay]4.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 11, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Gurney: "On"
2 Gurney: "afar"
3 Gurney: "heart"
4 Gurney: "day"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Oh, sick am I to see you  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
"Oh, sick [I am]1 to see you, will you never let me be?
You may be good for something, but you are not good for me.
Oh, go where you are wanted, for you are not wanted here.
And that was all the farewell when I parted from my dear.

"I will go where I am wanted, to a lady born and bred
Who will dress me free for nothing in a uniform of red;
She will not be sick to see me if I only keep it clean:
I will go where I am wanted for a soldier of the Queen.

"I will go where I am wanted, for the sergeant does not mind;
He may be sick to see me but he treats me very kind:
He gives me beer and breakfast and a ribbon for my cap,
And I never knew a sweetheart spend her money on a chap.

"I will go where I am wanted, where there's room for one or two,
And the men are none too many for the work there is to do;
Where the standing line wears thinner and the dropping dead lie thick;
And the enemies of England they shall see me and be sick."

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), "The new mistress", appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 34, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Baksa: "am I"; further changes may exist not noted.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. White in the moon  [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.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 36, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

6. Others, I am not the first  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Others, I am not the first,
Have willed more mischief than they durst:
If in the breathless night I too
Shiver now, 'tis nothing new.

More than I, if truth were told,
Have stood and sweated hot and cold,
And through their reins in ice and fire
Fear contended with desire.

Agued once like me were they,
But I like them shall win my way
Lastly to the bed of mould
Where there's neither heat nor cold.

But from my grave across my brow
Plays no wind of healing now,
And fire and ice within me fight
Beneath the suffocating night.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 30, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

7. Oh fair enough are sky and plain  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Oh fair enough are sky and plain,
  But I know fairer far:
Those are as beautiful again
  That in the water are;

The pools and rivers wash so clean
  The trees and clouds and air,
The like on earth was never seen,
  And oh that I were there.

These are the thoughts I often think
  As I stand gazing down
In act upon the cressy brink
  To strip and dive and drown;

But in the golden-sanded brooks
  And azure meres I spy
A silly lad that longs and looks
  And wishes he were I.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 20, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

8. If it chance your eye offend you  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
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.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 45, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

9. Oh, when I was in love with you  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was [clean]1 and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
[How]2 well did I behave.

[And]3 now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 18, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , "Oh, als verliebt ich war in dich", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Hagen: "sweet"
2 Hagen: "so"
3 Hagen: "But"

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

10. Think no more, lad  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly;
Why should men make haste to die?
Empty heads and tongues a-talking
Make the rough road easy walking,
And the feather pate of folly
Bears the falling sky.

Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking
Spins the heavy world around.
If young hearts were not so clever,
Oh, they would be young for ever;
Think no more; 'tis only thinking
Lays lads underground.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 49, 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
  • HEB Hebrew (עברית) (Max Mader) , "אל תחשוב עוד", copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

11. 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.

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 2, 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
  • HEB Hebrew (עברית) (Max Mader) , "היפה בעצים", copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Manton: "years"
2 Steele: "woodland"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 998
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This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
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