A Shropshire Lad

Song Cycle by Edwin Frank Avril (b. 1920)

?. Into my heart an air that kills [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

Into my heart an air that kills
  From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
  What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
  I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
  And cannot come again.

Text Authorship:

by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 40, first published 1896

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

ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Dentro il mio cuore un vento che uccide", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

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.

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):

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

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Total word count: 128