LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,103)
  • Text Authors (19,448)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)

In the wild October night‑time, when the...
Language: English 
In the wild October night-time, when the wind raved round the land,
And the Back-sea1 met the Front-sea, and our doors were blocked with sand,
And we heard the drub of Dead-man's Bay, where bones of thousands are,
We knew not what the day had done for us at Trafalgár.
  Had done,
  Had done,
For us at Trafalgár.

"Pull hard, and make the Nothe, or down we go", one [says!]2 says he.
We pulled; and bedtime brought the storm; but snug at home slept we.
Yet all the while our gallants after fighting through the day,
Were beating up and down the dark, sou'-west of Cadiz Bay.
  The dark,
  The dark,
Sou'-west of Cadiz Bay!

The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore,
As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore;
Dead Nelson and his half-dead crew, his foes from near and far,
Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgár!
  The deep,
  The deep,
That night at Trafalgár!

Available sung texts:   ← What is this?

•   C. Scott 

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
1 note from the The Dynasts : In those days the hind-part of the harbour adjoining this scene was so named, and at high tides the waves washed across the isthmus at a point called "The Narrows".
2 omitted by Scott.

Text Authorship:

  • by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "Song: The Night of Trafalgár", appears in The Dynasts, Act V, Scene 6, first published 1903-8 [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 Ivor (Bertie) Gurney (1890 - 1937), "The night of Trafalgar", 1913, published 1979 [ voice and piano ], revised 1924 [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Cyril Meir Scott (1879 - 1970), "Trafalgar", op. 38 (Two Songs) no. 2, published 1904 [ voice and piano ], London : Boosey & Hawkes [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Boyton Smith (b. 1837), "In the wild October night-time", first performed 1912 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 21
Word count: 170

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris