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The Curlew

Song Cycle by Peter Warlock (1894 - 1930)

1. He reproves the curlew
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
O, curlew, cry no more in the air, 
Or only to the waters in the West; 
Because your crying brings to my mind 
Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair 
That was shaken out over my breast: 
There is enough evil in the crying of wind.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "O'Sullivan Rua to the Curlew"

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "O chiurlo, più non gridare all'aria", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

First published in Savoy, November 1896, as one of Windlestraws, revised 1899 and 1906
Researcher for this page: David K. Smythe

2. The lover mourns for the loss of love
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Pale brows, still hands and dim hair, 
I had a beautiful friend 
And dreamed that the old despair 
Would end in love in the end: 
She looked in my heart one day 
And saw your image was there; 
She has gone weeping away.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), title 1: "Aedh laments the Loss of Love", title 2: "The lover mours for the loss of love", appears in The Wind among the reeds, first published 1899

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "L'amore perduto", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Note: first published in Dome, May 1898 as one of the "Aodh to Dectora. Three Songs", revised 1899, revised 1906.
Researcher for this page: David K. Smythe

3. The cloths of heaven
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths
Enwrought with golden and silver light
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), title 1: "Aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven", title 2: "He wishes for the cloths of heaven", appears in The Wind among the reeds, first published 1899

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • HUN Hungarian (Magyar) (Tamás Rédey) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Original title is "Aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven"; revised 1906; re-titled "He wishes for the cloths of heaven".
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. The withering of the boughs
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
I cried when the moon was murmuring to the birds, 
"Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will, 
I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words, 
For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind."
The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill, 
And I fell asleep upon lonely Echtge of streams. 
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind; 
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.

I know of the leafy paths the witches take, 
Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool, 
And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake; 
I know where a dim moon drifts, where the Danaan kind 
Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool 
On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams. 
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind; 
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.

I know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round 
Coupled with golden chains, and sing as they fly. 
A king and a queen are wandering there, and the sound 
Has made them so happy and hopeless, so deaf and so blind 
With wisdom, they wander till all the years have gone by; 
I know. and the curlew and peewit on Echtge of streams. 
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind; 
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "The withering of the boughs", appears in In the Seven Woods, first published 1903

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "Flétrissure des branches", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

First published in Speaker, August 1900

Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 76.


Researcher for this page: David K. Smythe

6. He hears the cry of the sedge
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
I wander by the edge 
Of this desolate lake 
Where wind cries in the sedge:
Until the axle break 
That keeps the stars in their round, 
And hands hurl in the deep 
The banners of East and West. 
And the girdle of light is unbound, 
Your breast will not lie by the breast
Of your beloved in sleep.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), title 1: "Aedh hears the Cry of the Sedge", title 2: "He hears the Cry of the Sedge", appears in The Wind among the reeds, first published 1899

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Note: first published in Dome, May 1898 as one of the "Aodh to Dectora. Three Songs", revised 1899, revised 1906.
Researcher for this page: David K. Smythe
Total word count: 455
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

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