Three songs by W. H. Auden

Song Cycle by John Francis Rimmer (b. 1939)

?. The decoys  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
There are some birds in these valleys
Who flutter round the careless
With intimate appeal,
By seeming kindness trained to snaring,
They feel no falseness.
 
Under the spell completely
They circle can serenely,
And in the tricky light
The masked hill has a purer greenness.
Their flight looks fleeter.
 
But fowlers, O, like foxes,
Lie ambushed in the rushes.
Along the harmless tracks
The madman keeper crawls through brushwood,
Axe under oxter.
 
Alas, the signal given,
Fingers on the trigger tighten.
The real unlucky dove
Must smarting fall away from brightness
Its love from living.

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, 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.

Confirmed with W.H. Auden Collected Poems, edited by Edward Mendelsson, New York: Random House, 1976, page 66


Researcher for this page: Sharon Krebs [Guest Editor]

?. Invocation to Ariel

Language: English 
Sing, Ariel, sing
 . . . . . . . . . .

— The rest of this text is not
currently in the database but will be
added as soon as we obtain it. —

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Later given the title "Invocation to Ariel" in W. H. Auden: A Selection by the Author, 1958

?. This lunar beauty  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
This lunar beauty
Has no history
Is complete and early,
If beauty later
Bear any feature
It had a lover
And is another.

This like a dream
Keeps other time
And daytime is
The loss of this,
For time is inches
And the heart's changes
Where ghost has haunted
Lost and wanted.

But this was never
A ghost's endeavor
Nor finished this,
Was ghost at ease,
And till it pass
Love shall not near
The sweetness here
Nor sorrow take
His endless look.

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, 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.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 178