Three Song-Pictures

Song Cycle by Cyril Bradley Rootham (1875 - 1938)

?. Butterflies  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Frail Travellers, deftly flickering over the flowers;
O living flowers against the heedless blue
Of summer days, what sends them dancing through
This fiery-blossom'd revel of the hours?

Theirs are the musing silences between
The enraptured crying of shrill birds that make
Heaven in the wood while summer dawns awake;
And theirs the faintest winds that hush the green.

And they are as my soul that wings its way
Out of the starlit dimness into morn:
And they are as my tremulous being -- born
To know but this, the phantom glare of day.

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada and the U.S., but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

First published in New Statesman, January 1919

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. Idyll  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
In the grey summer garden I shall find you
With day-break and the morning hills behind you.
There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings;
And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings.
Not from the past you'll come, but from that deep
Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep:
And I shall know the sense of life re-born
From dreams into the mystery of morn
Where gloom and brightness meet. And standing there
Till that calm song is done, at last we'll share
The league-spread, quiring symphonies that are
Joy in the world, and peace, and dawn's one star.

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada and the U.S., but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

First published in New Statesman, June 1918

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. Everyone sang  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
[Everyone]1 suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filed with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white 
Orchards and dark-green fields; on -- on -- and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror 
Drifted away. ... O but Everyone 
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the [singing]2 will never be done.

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada and the U.S., but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Dougherty, Wells: "ev'ryone", throughout
2 Dougherty: "song"

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Garrett Medlock [Guest Editor]
Total word count: 270