Autumn songs

Song Cycle by Richard Layton Kent (b. 1916)

1. The morns are meeker than they were [sung text not yet checked]

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

Authorship:

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Herbst", copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. As imperceptibly as grief [sung text not yet checked]

As imperceptibly as grief
The Summer lapsed away --
Too imperceptible, at last,
To seem like Perfidy -- 

A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon --

The Dusk drew earlier in --
The morning foreign shone --
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, [that]1 would be gone --

And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.

Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Bacon: "who"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. The sky is low, the clouds are mean [sung text not yet checked]

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.

Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Le Ciel est bas -- les Nuages ont l'air méchants", copyright © 2019, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2019, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 158