Five Songs

Song Cycle by Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912 - 1990)

1. Mimic heaven [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

Here are the skies, the planets seven
And all the starry train;
Content you with the mimic heaven,
And on the earth remain.

Ask me no more, for fear I should reply;
Others have held their tongues, and so can I;
Hundreds have died, and told no tale before:
Ask me no more, for fear I should reply --

How one was true and one was clean of stain
And one was braver than the heavens are high,
And one was fond of me; and all are slain.
Ask me no more, for fear I should reply.

Text Authorship:

by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A. E. H., first published 1937

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Note: this poem was separated into two untitled poems in Additional Poems: Here are the skies, the planets seven and Ask me no more, for fear I should reply.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. He would not stay [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

He would not stay for me; and who can wonder?
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder
And went with half my life about my ways.

Text Authorship:

by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), appears in A. E. H., first published 1937

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Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

3. Stars [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

Stars, I have seen them fall,
  But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
  From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
  Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea,
  And still the sea is salt.

Text Authorship:

by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in More Poems, no. 7, first published 1936

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Unlucky love [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

I promise nothing: friends will part;
  All things may end, for all began;
And truth and singleness of heart
  Are mortal even as is man.
 
But this unlucky love should last
  When answered passions thin to air;
Eternal fate so deep has cast
  Its sure foundation of despair.

Text Authorship:

by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in More Poems, no. 12, first published 1936

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. Homespun collars [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

From the wash the laundress sends
My collars home with ravelled ends;
I must fit, now these are frayed,
My neck with new ones London-made.

Homespun collars, homespun hearts,
Wear to rags in foreign parts.
Mine at least's as good as done,
And I must get a London one.

Text Authorship:

by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in More Poems, no. 29, first published 1936

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Total word count: 277