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 upon the ground
And little motion in the air,
  Except the mill-wheel's sound.

Some settings use the modernized spelling "sat" instead of "sate"

Composition:

Set to music by Herbert Norman Howells (1892 - 1983), "The widow bird", op. 22 (Four Songs) no. 3 (1915), published 1919 [ voice and piano ]

Text Authorship:

• by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), no title, appears in Charles the First

See other settings of this text.

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