LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,103)
  • Text Authors (19,450)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

Three songs to poems of Robert Graves

Song Cycle by Bruce Mather (b. 1939)

?. Counting the beats  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
You, love, and I
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Graves (1895 - 1985), "Counting the beats", copyright ©

See other settings of this text.

This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.
First published in Good Housekeeping, April 1950

?. Lost love  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
His eyes are quickened so with grief, 
He can watch a grass or leaf 
Every instant grow; he can 
Clearly through a flint wall see, 
Or watch the startled spirit flee 
From the throat of a dead man. 
Across two counties he can hear 
And catch your words before you speak. 
The woodlouse or the maggot's weak 
Clamour rings in his sad ear, 
And noise so slight it would surpass 
Credence--drinking sound of grass, 
Worm talk, clashing jaws of moth 
Chumbling holes in cloth; 
The groan of ants who undertake 
Gigantic loads for honour's sake 
(Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin); 
Whir of spiders when they spin, 
And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs 
Of idle grubs and flies. 
This man is quickened so with grief, 
He wanders god-like or like thief 
Inside and out, below, above, 
Without relief seeking lost love. 

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Graves (1895 - 1985), "Lost love", appears in Treasure Box, first published 1919

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. The finding of love  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Pale at first and cold,
Like wizard's lily-bloom
Conjured from the gloom,
Like torch of glow-worm seen
Through grasses shining green,
By children half in fright,
Or Christmas candlelight
Flung on the outer snow,
Or tinsel stars that show
Their evening glory
With sheen of fairy story--

Now with his blaze
Love dries the cobweb maze
Dew-sagged upon the corn,
He brings the flowering thorn,
Mayfly and butterfly,
And pigeons in the sky,
Robin and thrush,
And the long bulrush,
The cherry under the leaf,
Earth in a silken dress,
With end to grief,
With joy in steadfastness.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Graves (1895 - 1985), "The finding of love"

Go to the general single-text view

First published in London Mercury, January 1921

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 371
Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris