by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936)
When summer's end is nighing
Language: English
When summer's end is nighing And skies at evening cloud, I muse on change and fortune And all the feats I vowed When I was young and proud. The weathercock at sunset Would lose the slanted ray, And I would climb the beacon That looked to Wales away And saw the last of day. From hill and cloud and heaven The hues of evening died; Night welled through lane and hollow And hushed the countryside, But I had youth and pride. And I with earth and nightfall In converse high would stand, Late, till the west was ashen And darkness hard at hand, And the eye lost the land. The year might age, and cloudy The lessening day might close, But air of other summers Breathed from beyond the snows, And I had hope of those. They came and were and are not And come no more anew; And all the years and seasons That ever can ensue Must now be worse and few. So here's an end [of]1 roaming On eves when autumn nighs: The ear too fondly listens For summer's parting sighs, And then the heart replies.
R. Hugill sets stanzas 1, 3, 5-7
About the headline (FAQ)
View original text (without footnotes)1 Hugill: "to"
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in Last Poems, no. 39, first published 1922 [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 Robert Hugill , "When summer's end is nighing", stanzas 1,3,5-7. [baritone and piano] [ sung text verified 1 time]
- by Charles Wilfred Orr (1893 - 1976), "Midsummer dance", 1957 [[voice], violoncello and piano], note: Stone Records included this piece in their The Complete C.W. Orr Songbook - Volume 1. The Auden text was added to Orr's work posthumously; it was originally scored for cello and piano. [ sung text verified 1 time]
- by John Ramsden Williamson (1929 - 2015), "When summer's end is nighing" [baritone and piano] [ sung text not verified ]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2008-12-13
Line count: 35
Word count: 189