There are some birds in these valleys Who flutter round the careless With intimate appeal, By seeming kindness trained to snaring, They feel no falseness. Under the spell completely They circle can serenely, And in the tricky light The masked hill has a purer greenness. Their flight looks fleeter. But fowlers, O, like foxes, Lie ambushed in the rushes. Along the harmless tracks The madman keeper crawls through brushwood, Axe under oxter. Alas, the signal given, Fingers on the trigger tighten. The real unlucky dove Must smarting fall away from brightness Its love from living.
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Confirmed with W.H. Auden Collected Poems, edited by Edward Mendelsson, New York: Random House, 1976, page 66
Text Authorship:
- by W. H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden (1907 - 1973), "The decoys", from The Oratorio: An English Study, first published 1932 [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 John Francis Rimmer (b. 1939), "The decoys", 1964 [ voice and piano ], from Three songs by W. H. Auden [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this page: Sharon Krebs [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2016-05-18
Line count: 20
Word count: 95