When I set out for Lyonnesse,
   A hundred miles away,
   The rime was on the spray,
 And starlight lit my lonesomeness
 When I set out for Lyonnesse
   A hundred miles away.

 What would bechance at Lyonnesse
   While I should sojourn there
   No prophet durst declare,
 Nor did the wisest wizard guess
 What would bechance at Lyonnesse
   While I should sojourn there.

 When I came back from Lyonnesse
   With magic in my eyes,
   [None managed to surmise
 What meant my godlike gloriousness]1,
 When I came back from Lyonnesse
   With magic in my eyes!

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View original text (without footnotes)
¹ There seem to be two versions of this poem. Finzi and the other version: "All marked with mute surmise / My radiance rare and fathomless" ; Gibbs mixes them: "All marked with mute surmise / What meant my godlike gloriousness"

Authorship

• by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "When I set out for Lyonnesse", appears in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces, first published 1914 [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 Frederic Austin (1872 - 1952), "When I set out for Lyonnesse", published 1927 [baritone and piano], from Three Wessex Songs [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Rutland Boughton (1878 - 1960), "A Song of Lyonnesse", published 1924 [voice and orchestra or piano], from Three Hardy Songs [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by John Woods Duke (1899 - 1984), "When I set out for Lyonnesse", published 1953. [voice and piano] [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Gerald Finzi (1901 - 1956), "When I set out for Lyonnesse", op. 15 no. 2, published 1936 [baritone, piano], from Earth and Air and Rain, no. 2. [ sung text checked 1 time]
• by Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889 - 1960), "Lyonnesse", published 1921. [voice, piano] [ sung text checked 1 time]
• by Sidney Harrison (b. 1903), "When I set out for Lyonnesse", published 1929. [voice, piano] [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Fritz Bennicke Hart (1874 - 1949), "When I set out for Lyonnesse", op. 120 (Five songs) (1938). [voice and piano] [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Irwin Heilner (b. 1908), "When I set out for Lyonnesse", 1966. [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Christopher Kaye Le Fleming (b. 1908), "When I set out for Lyonnesse", published 1963 [soprano, tenor, satb chorus, orchestra], from Six Country Songs [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Tom M. McCourt , "When I set out for Lyonnesse", published 1937. [2-part chorus of treble voices, piano] [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Katharine E. O'Brien , "When I set out for Lyonnesse", published 1947. [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Charles A. Speyer , "When I set out for Lyonnesse", published 1920 [voice, piano], from Six Selected Lyrics [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Leslie Walters (1902 - 1998), "When I set out for Lyonnesse", published 1957. [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]

Researcher for this text: Ted Perry

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 18
Word count: 93