O lurcher-loving collier, black as night,
Follow your love across the smokeless hill;
Your lamp is out, the cages are all still;
Course for heart and do not miss,
For Sunday soon is past and, Kate, fly 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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First published in New Verse, Summer 1938, as part of a documentary script titled "Coal Face"; Revised 1945.

Text Authorship:

• by W. H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden (1907 - 1973), "Madrigal", written 1935 [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 Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley, Sir (1903 - 1989), "O lurcher-loving collier, black as night", op. 53 no. 2 (1958), published 1960 [ medium voice and piano ], from Five poems, no. 2, London, J. & W. Chester [sung text checked 1 time]
• by John Reginald Lang-Hyde (1899 - 1990), as Lewis Hyde, "O lurcher-loving collier", 1951 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Richard Orton (b. 1940), "Madrigal", published 1970 [ SATB chorus a cappella ], from Four Partsongs, Great Yarmouth, Galliard [sung text not yet checked]
• by Ronald Senator (b. 1926), "O lurcher-loving collier" [ SATB chorus a cappella ], from Summer soon is past [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2012-06-18
Line count: 7
Word count: 58