LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,110)
  • Text Authors (19,487)
  • 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

Five Millay Songs

Song Cycle by H. Leslie Adams (b. 1932)

1. Wild Swans  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
I looked in my heart [while]1 the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more:
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.

Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!

Text Authorship:

  • by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), appears in Second April, first published 1921

See other settings of this text.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Steele: "when"

Researcher for this page: Victoria Brago

2. Branch by Branch
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Branch by branch 
This tree has died. Green only 
Is one last bough, moving its leaves in the sun.

What evil ate its root, what blight,
What ugly thing,
Let the mole say, the bird sing;
Or the white worm behind the shedding bark
Tick in the dark.

You and I have only one thing to do:
Saw the trunk through.

Text Authorship:

  • by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), no title, appears in Huntsman, What Quarry?, in Not So Far as the Forest, no. 2, first published 1933

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Sharon Krebs) , "Ast um Ast", copyright © 2021, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Note: The following individuals provided invaluable help in determining when this poem was first published: Brenda Wiard of 2neat.com, Janet Hughes from the library of Pennsylvania State University, and particularly Kristi Addleman Ritter, also from the from the library of Pennsylvania State University. Their assistance is gratefully acknowledged.
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Sharon Krebs [Guest Editor]

3. For you there is no song
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
For you there is no song,
Only the shaking of the voice that meant to sing,
The sound of the strong voice breaking.
Strange in my hand appears the pen,
And yours broken
There are ink and tears on the page.
Only the tears have spoken.

Text Authorship:

  • by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), appears in Huntsman, What Quarry?, first published 1939

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. The return from town  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
As I sat down by Saddle Stream
To bathe my dusty feet there,
A boy was standing on the bridge
Any girl would meet there.

As I went over Woody Knob
And dipped into the Hollow,
A youth was coming up the hill
Any maid would follow.

Then in I turned at my own gate, -
And nothing to be sad for -
To such a man as any wife
Would pass a pretty lad for.

Text Authorship:

  • by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), appears in The Harp-Weaver and other poems

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

5. Gone Again is Summer the Lovely  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Gone, gone again is Summer the lovely,
She that knew not where to hide
Is gone again like a jewelled fish from the hand,
Is lost on ev'ry side.

Mute, mute I make my way to the garden,
Thither where she last was seen;
The heavy foot of the frost is on the flags there
Where her light step has been.

Gone, gone again is Summer the lovely,
Gone again on ev'ry side,
Lost again, like a shining fish from the hand
Into the shadowy tide.

Text Authorship:

  • by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), "Song", appears in The Buck in the Snow, first published 1928

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
Total word count: 338
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