Four Partsongs

Song Cycle by Richard Orton (b. 1940)

?. Madrigal  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
O lurcher-loving collier, black as night,
Follow your love across the smokeless hill;
Your lamp is out, [the cages are all]1 still;
Course for [heart]2 and do not miss,
For Sunday soon is past and, Kate, [fly]3 not so fast,
For Monday comes when none may kiss:
Be marble to his soot, and to his black be white.

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View original text (without footnotes)
First published in New Verse, Summer 1938, as part of a documentary script titled "Coal Face"; Revised 1945.

1 Berkeley: "and all the cages"
2 Berkeley: "her heart"
3 Berkeley: "go"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Total word count: 58