I went by footpath and by stile Beyond where bustle ends, Strayed here a mile and there a mile And called upon some friends. On certain ones I had not seen For years past did I call, And then on others who had been The oldest friends of all. It was the time of midsummer When they had used to roam; But now, though tempting was the air, I found them all at home. I spoke to one and other of them By mound and stone and tree Of things we had done ere days were dim, But they spoke not to me.
By Footpath and Stile
Song Cycle by Gerald Finzi (1901 - 1956)
1. Paying calls  [sung text not yet checked]
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "Paying calls", appears in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses, first published 1917
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]2. Where the picnic was  [sung text checked 1 time]
Where we made the fire, In the summer time, Of branch and briar On the hill to the sea I slowly climb Through winter mire, And scan and trace The forsaken place Quite readily. Now a cold wind blows, And the grass is gray, But the spot still shows As a burnt circle - aye, And stick-ends, charred, Still strew the sward Whereon I stand, Last relic of the band Who came that day! Yes, I am here Just as last year, And the sea breathes brine From its strange straight line Up hither, the same As when we four came. - But two have wandered far From this grassy rise Into urban roar Where no picnics are, And one - has shut her eyes For evermore.
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "Where the picnic was", appears in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces, first published 1914
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]3. The Oxen  [sung text checked 1 time]
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. "Now they are all on their knees," An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures [where]1 [They]2 dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then. So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, "Come; see the oxen kneel, In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know," I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so.
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "The Oxen", first published 1915
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View original text (without footnotes)First published in The Times, December 1915
1 omitted by Gibbs.2 Gibbs: "As they"
Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
4. The master and the leaves  [sung text not yet checked]
I We are budding, Master, budding, We of your favourite tree; March drought and April flooding Arouse us merrily, Our stemlets newly studding; And yet you do not see! II We are fully woven for summer In stuff of limpest green, The twitterer and the hummer Here rest of nights, unseen, While like a long-roll drummer The nightjar thrills the treen. III We are turning yellow, Master, And next we are turning red, And faster then and faster Shall seek our rooty bed, All wasted in disaster! But you lift not your head. IV - "I mark your early going, And that you'll soon be clay, I have seen your summer showing As in my youthful day; But why I seem unknowing Is too sunk in to say!"
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "The master and the leaves", appears in Owl, first published 1919, rev. 1922
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]5. Voices from things growing in a churchyard  [sung text not yet checked]
These flowers are I, poor Fanny Hurd, Sir or Madam, A little girl here sepultured. Once I flit-fluttered like a bird Above the grass, as now I wave In daisy shapes above my grave, All day cheerily, All night eerily! - I am one Bachelor Bowring, "Gent," Sir or Madam; In shingled oak my bones were pent; Hence more than a hundred years I spent In my feat of change from a coffin-thrall To a dancer in green as leaves on a wall. All day cheerily, All night eerily! - I, these berries of juice and gloss, Sir or Madam, Am clean forgotten as Thomas Voss; Thin-urned, I have burrowed away from the moss That covers my sod, and have entered this yew, And turned to clusters ruddy of view, All day cheerily, All night eerily! - The Lady Gertrude, proud, high-bred, Sir or Madam, Am I--this laurel that shades your head; Into its veins I have stilly sped, And made them of me; and my leaves now shine, As did my satins superfine, All day cheerily, All night eerily! - I, who as innocent withwind climb, Sir or Madam. Am one Eve Greensleeves, in olden time Kissed by men from many a clime, Beneath sun, stars, in blaze, in breeze, As now by glowworms and by bees, All day cheerily, All night eerily! - I'm old Squire Audeley Grey, who grew, Sir or Madam, Aweary of life, and in scorn withdrew; Till anon I clambered up anew As ivy-green, when my ache was stayed, And in that attire I have longtime gayed All day cheerily, All night eerily! - And so they breathe, these masks, to each Sir or Madam Who lingers there, and their lively speech Affords an interpreter much to teach, As their murmurous accents seem to come Thence hitheraround in a radiant hum, All day cheerily, All night eerily!
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "Voices from things growing in a churchyard"
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First published in London Mercury 1921, rev. 1922Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
6. Exeunt omnes  [sung text checked 1 time]
I Everybody else, then, going, And I still left where the fair was? . . . Much have I seen of neighbour loungers Making a lusty showing, Each now past all knowing. II There is an air of blankness In the street and the littered spaces; Thoroughfare, steeple, bridge and highway Wizen themselves to lankness; Kennels dribble dankness. III Folk all fade. And whither, As I wait alone where the fair was? Into the clammy and numbing night-fog Whence they entered hither. Soon do I follow thither!
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "Exeunt omnes", appears in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces, first published 1914
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]