I made my song a coat (Yeats, set by (Ruth Schonthal, James Walter Wilson)) (The LiederNet Archive: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)

by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)

I made my song a coat

Language: English

Available translation(s): FRE

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

About the headline (FAQ)

First published in Poetry, Chicago, May 1914

Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 233.

Authorship

by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "A coat", appears in Responsibilities and Other Poems [author's text checked 2 times 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 Ruth Schonthal (1924 - 2006), "I made my song a coat", 1949 [ mezzo-soprano and piano ], from Nine Lyric Dramatic Songs, no. 6, Furore Edition [sung text not yet checked]
by James Walter Wilson (b. 1922), "The coat", op. 54 no. ? [ soprano, unaccompanied ], from Upon Silence [sung text not yet checked]

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

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2008-09-21
Line count: 10
Word count: 45