LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,109)
  • Text Authors (19,482)
  • 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

by W. H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden (1907 - 1973)

Tell me the truth about love
 (Sung text for setting by B. Britten)
 See base text
Language: English 
Some say that Love's a little boy
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round
And some say that's absurd:
But when I asked the man next door
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife was very cross indeed
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas
Or the ham in a temperance hotel,
Does its odour remind one of llamas
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is
Or soft as eiderdown fluff,
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

 ... 

I looked inside the summer-house,
It wasn't ever there,
I've tried the Thames at Maidenhead
And Brighton's bracing air;
I don't know what the blackbird sang
Or what the roses said,
But it wasn't in the chicken-run
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces,
Is it usually sick on a swing,
Does it spend all its time at the races
Or fiddling with pieces of string,
Has it views of its own about money,
Does it think Patriotism enough,
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

Your feelings when you meet it, I
Am told you can't forget.
I've sought it since I was a child
But haven't found it yet;
I'm getting on for thirty-five,
And still I do not know
What kind of creature it can be
That bothers people so.

 ... 

Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Note: Britten's setting begins with a spoken line that does not appear in the Auden poem: "Liebe l'amour amor amoris."

Composition:

    Set to music by (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), "Tell me the truth about love", 1938, published 1980, stanzas 1-2, 5-7 [ voice and piano ], from Cabaret Songs, no. 1

Text Authorship:

  • by W. H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden (1907 - 1973), "O tell me the truth about love"

Go to the general single-text view


Researcher for this page: David K. Smythe

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 64
Word count: 406

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