O lurcher-loving collier, black as night, Follow your love across the smokeless hill; Your lamp is out, [the cages are all]1 still; Course for [heart]2 and do not miss, For Sunday soon is past and, Kate, [fly]3 not so fast, For Monday comes when none may kiss: Be marble to his soot, and to his black be white.
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View original text (without footnotes)First published in New Verse, Summer 1938, as part of a documentary script titled "Coal Face"; Revised 1945.
1 Berkeley: "and all the cages"
2 Berkeley: "her heart"
3 Berkeley: "go"
Text Authorship:
- by W. H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden (1907 - 1973), "Madrigal", written 1935 [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 Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley, Sir (1903 - 1989), "O lurcher-loving collier, black as night", op. 53 no. 2 (1958), published 1960 [ medium voice and piano ], from Five poems, no. 2, London, J. & W. Chester [sung text checked 1 time]
- by John Reginald Lang-Hyde (1899 - 1990), as Lewis Hyde, "O lurcher-loving collier", 1951 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Richard Orton (b. 1940), "Madrigal", published 1970 [ SATB chorus a cappella ], from Four Partsongs, Great Yarmouth, Galliard [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ronald Senator (b. 1926), "O lurcher-loving collier" [ SATB chorus a cappella ], from Summer soon is past [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2012-06-18
Line count: 7
Word count: 61