L'oiseau bleu | The lake lay blue below the hill

by Mary Coleridge (1861 - 1907)

The lake lay blue below the hill

Language: English

Available translation(s): DUT FRE GER

The lake lay blue below the hill,
O'er it, as I looked, there flew
Across the waters, cold and still,
A bird whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last,
The sky beneath me blue in blue,
A moment, ere the bird had passed,
It caught his image as he flew.

About the headline (FAQ)

Authorship:

by Mary Coleridge (1861 - 1907), "L'oiseau bleu", appears in Poems, no. 52, first published 1907 [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 William Busch (1901 - 1945), "L'oiseau bleu", c1944 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir (1852 - 1924), "The blue bird", op. 119 (Eight partsongs) no. 3, published 1910 [ SSAA chorus a cappella ] [sung text checked 1 time]

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

Researcher for this text: Virginia Knight

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 8
Word count: 55