A widow bird sate mourning for her love
  Upon a wintry bough,
The frozen wind crept on above;
  The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
  No [flower]1 upon the ground
And little motion in the air,
  Except the mill-wheel's sound.

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View original text (without footnotes)
Some settings use the modernized spelling "sat" instead of "sate"
¹ Treharne: "flowers".

Text Authorship:

• by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), no title, appears in Charles the First [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Creighton Allen (1900 - 1969), "Winter song", published 1954, from Shelley Songs, Cycle of Ten Songs, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
• by George Benjamin Arnold , "A widow bird" [ duet for 2 sopranos ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by John Harold Ashe (b. 1938), "A widow bird", published 1947 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Frederick Cook Atkinson (1841 - 1897), "A widow bird", published 1876, from Six songs, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Judith Margaret Bailey , "A widow bird", 1969 [ baritone and piano ], from Three Settings of Poems by Shelley [sung text not yet checked]
• by Henry Charles Banister (1831 - 1897), "A widow bird", op. 20 no. 2, published 1870, from Two Winter Songs, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Granville Ransome Bantock, Sir (1868 - 1946), "A widow bird", 1921, published 1923 [ voice and piano ], from Songs of Shelley, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Carol Barratt , "Song", published 1997, from Six "Songs" for Singing, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, Sir (1883 - 1953), "A widow bird", 1900 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Arthur Henry Behrend (1853 - 1935), "A widow bird", published 1908 [ unison chorus and piano ], from Through the Year. A Cantata for Ladies' Voices, no. 8 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Richard Rodney Bennett (1936 - 2012), "The widow bird", published 1966 [ voice or unison chorus and piano ], from The Aviary, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, Sir (1891 - 1975), "A widow bird", published 1968, from Three Songs for Girls' or Boys' Voices: nursery rhymes by Percy Bysshe Shelley and anonymous, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
• by H. L. Brainard , "A widow bird", published 1906 [sung text not yet checked]
• by A. (Alfred or Arthur?) Herbert Brewer (1865 - 1928), "A widow bird sat", published 1924 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Margaret Marie Dare (1902 - 1976), "A Widow Bird Sate Mourning", subtitle: "partsong" [ chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912 - 1990), "A widow bird", <<1932 [ voice and piano ], unpublished [sung text not yet checked]
• by Juliana Hall (b. 1958), "A song", 1989, copyright © 2017, first performed 1990 [ baritone and piano ], from Winter Windows -- 7 songs for Baritone and Piano, no. 3, E. C. Schirmer Music Company, Inc., a division of ECS Publishing Group [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Herbert Norman Howells (1892 - 1983), "The widow bird", op. 22 (Four Songs) no. 3 (1915), published 1919 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881 - 1916), "The widow bird", 1899 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Liza Lehmann (1862 - 1918), "A widow bird sat mourning" [sung text not yet checked]
• by Bertram Luard-Selby (1853 - 1918), "A widow bird sat mourning" [sung text not yet checked]
• by Elizabeth Maconchy (1907 - 1994), "A widow-bird sate mourning", 1973-4, published 1976 [ voice and harp ], from Three Songs for Voice and Harp, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Humphrey Procter-Gregg (1895 - 1980), "The widow bird" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Marie Cornélie Cathérine Reynvaan (1854 - 1934), "Song", published 1907 [ voice and piano ], from Shelley-liederen, no. 1, Amsterdam : Alsbach  [sung text not yet checked]
• by Edmund Duncan Rubbra (1901 - 1986), "A widow bird sate mourning", op. 28 (1930), published 1931 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Evelyn Hope Squire (1878 - 1936), "A Widow Bird Sate Mourning", published 1938 [ voice and piano ], Stainer and Bell [sung text not yet checked]
• by Bryceson Treharne (1879 - 1948), "A widow bird" [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Maude Valérie White (1855 - 1937), "A widow bird sate mourning", published 1888 [ voice and piano ], London: Pitt and Hatzfeld [sung text not yet checked]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

• Also set in Dutch (Nederlands), a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Marie Cornélie Cathérine Reynvaan.
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• Also set in Russian (Русский), a translation by Konstantin Dmitrevich Bal'mont (1867 - 1942) , "Песня" ; composed by Fyodor Stepanovich Akimenko, Boris Lvovich Levinson, Sofya Aleksandrovna Zybina.
  • Go to the text.
    

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

• CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Píseň"
• ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Un passero solitario il suo amore lamenta", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 8
Word count: 45