LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,158)
  • Text Authors (19,574)
  • 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 (1,115)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Arthur Symons (1865 - 1945)

The grey wolf
 (Sung text for setting by H. Burleigh)
 See original
Language: English 
The grey wolf comes again : I had made fast 
The door with chains ; how has the grey wolf passed 
My threshold ? I have nothing left to give : 
Go from me now, grey wolf, and let me live ! 
I have fed you once, given all you would, given all 
I had to give, I have been prodigal ; 
I am poor now, the table is but spread 
With water and a little wheaten bread ; 
You have taken all I ever had from me :
Go from me now, grey wolf, and let me be !
 
The grey wolf, crouching by the bolted door, 
Waits, watching for his food upon the floor ; 
I see the old hunger and the old thirst for blood 
Rise up, under his eye-balls, like a flood : 
What shall I do that the grey wolf may go ? 
This time, I have no store of meat to throw ;
He waits ; but I have nothing left, and I stand 
Helpless, and his eyes fasten on my hand. 
O grey wolf, grey wolf, will you not depart, 
 ... , unless I feed you with my heart? 

Composition:

    Set to music by Harry Thacker Burleigh (1866 - 1949), "The grey wolf", 1915, published 1915, copyright © 1915 [ high voice and piano ], G. Ricordi

Text Authorship:

  • by Arthur Symons (1865 - 1945), "The grey wolf", appears in Poems of Arthur Symons, Volume 2, in The Loom of Dreams, first published 1914

Go to the general single-text view


Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Garrett Medlock [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2008-12-31
Line count: 20
Word count: 188

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