by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936)
The vane on Hughley steeple
Language: English
The vane on Hughley steeple Veers bright, a far-known sign, And there lie Hughley people, And there lie friends of mine. Tall in their midst the tower Divides the shade and sun, And the clock strikes the hour And tells the time to none. To south the headstones cluster, The sunny mounds lie thick; The dead are more in muster At Hughley than the quick. North, for a soon-told number, Chill graves the sexton delves, And steeple-shadowed slumber The slayers of themselves. To north, to south, lie parted, With Hughley tower above, The kind, the single-hearted, The lads I used to love. And, south or north, 'tis only A choice of friends one knows, And I shall ne'er be lonely Asleep with these or those.
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Text Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), "Hughley Steeple", appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 61, first published 1896 [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 Charles Wilfred Orr (1893 - 1976), "Hughley Steeple", 1931, published 1934 [ baritone and piano ], from Seven Songs from "A Shropshire Lad", no. 6 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Hughley Steeple", op. 162 (1947) [ baritone and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Peter Sculthorpe (b. 1929), "The vane on Hughley steeple", W25 (1947) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Ramsden Williamson (1929 - 2015), "Hughley Steeple - The vane on Hughley Steeple" [ baritone and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this page: Ted Perry
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 24
Word count: 125