If it's ever spring again | If it's ever spring again

by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)

If it's ever spring again

Language: English

Our translations: CAT

 If it's ever spring again,
 Spring again,
 I shall go where went I when
 Down the moor-cock splashed, and hen,
 Seeing me not, amid their flounder,
 Standing with my arm around her;
 If it's ever spring again,
 Spring again,
 I shall go where went I then.

 If it's ever summer-time,
 Summer-time,
 With the hay crop at the prime,
 And the cuckoos - two - in rhyme,
 As they used to be, or seemed to,
 We shall do as long we've dreamed to,
 If it's ever summer-time,
 Summer-time,
 With the hay, and bees achime.

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Text Authorship:

by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), appears in Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses, first published 1922 [author's text not yet checked 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 Rutland Boughton (1878 - 1960), "Foreboding", 1923, published 1924 [ voice and piano or strings ], from Three Hardy Songs, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
by (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), "If it's ever spring again", 1953 [ tenor and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Christopher Kaye Le Fleming (b. 1908), "If it's ever spring again", published 1943 [ mezzo-soprano or baritone and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Robin Humphrey Milford (1903 - 1959), "If it's ever spring again", published 1939 [ tenor and piano ], from Four Hardy Songs [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 between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 18
Word count: 92