A speckled cat and a tame hare (Yeats, set by (Gary Bachlund, Stanley Grill)) (The LiederNet Archive: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)

by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)

A speckled cat and a tame hare

Language: English

Available translation(s): FRE

A speckled cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there;
And both look up to me alone
For learning and defence
As I look up to Providence.

I start out of my sleep to think
Some day I may forget
Their food [and] drink;
Or, the house door left unshut,
The hare may run till it's found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

I bear a burden that might well try
Men that do all by rule,
And what can I
That am a wandering-witted fool
But pray to God that He ease
My great responsibilities?

About the headline (FAQ)

Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 313.

Grill: "or"

Authorship

by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), no title, appears in The Wild Swans at Coole, in Two Songs of a Fool, no. 1, first published 1919 [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 Stanley Grill (b. 1953), "Two Songs of a Fool I", copyright © 1977 [soprano and piano], from Six Songs, no. 4, confirmed with an online score [ sung text verified 1 time]

This text (or a part of it) is used in a work

by Gary Bachlund , "Songs of a Fool", 2010. [medium voice and piano]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Research team for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2011-12-28
Line count: 18
Word count: 104