The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors

England 1900-1930: A Musical Renaissance

Musical Texts

The Land of Lost Content

By John Ireland

Poetry by A.E. Housman

The Lent Lily

’Tis spring; come out to ramble

The hilly brakes around,

For under thorn and bramble

About the hollow ground

The primroses are found.

And there’s the windflower chilly

With all the winds at play,

And there’s the Lenten lily

That has not long to stay

And dies on Easter Day.

And since till girls go maying

You find the primrose still,

And find the windflower playing

With every wind at will,

But not the daffodil.

Bring baskets now, and sally

Upon the spring’s array,

And bear from hill and valley

The daffodil away

That dies on Easter Day.

Ladslove

Look not in my eyes, for fear

They mirror true the sight I see,

And there you find your face too clear

And love it and be lost like me.

One the long nights through must lie

Spent in star-defeated sighs,

But why should you as well as I

Perish? Gaze not in my eyes.

A Grecian lad, as I hear tell,

One that many loved in vain,

Looked into a forest well

And never looked away again.

There, when the turf in springtime flowers,

With downward eye and gazes sad,

Stands amid the glancing showers

A jonquil, not a Grecian lad.

Goal and Wicket

Twice a week the winter thorough

Here stood I to keep the goal:

Football then was fighting sorrow

For the young man’s soul.

Now in Maytime to the wicket

Out I march with bat and pad:

See the son of grief at cricket

Trying to be glad.

Try I will; no harm in trying:

Wonder ’tis how little mirth

Keeps the bones of man from lying

On the bed of earth.

The Vain Desire

If truth in hearts that perish

Could move the powers on high,

I think the love I bear you

Should make you not to die.

Sure, sure, if steadfast meaning,

If single thought could save,

The world might end tomorrow,

You should not see the grave.

This long and sure-set liking,

This boundless will to please,

Oh, you should live for ever

If there were help in these.

But now, since all is idle,

To this lost heart be kind,

Ere to a town you journey

Where friends are ill to find.

The Encounter

The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread,

And out we troop to see:

A single redcoat turns his head,

He turns and looks at me.

My man, from sky to sky’s so far,

We never crossed before;

Such leagues apart the world’s ends are,

We’re like to meet no more.

What thoughts at heart have you and I

We cannot stop to tell;

But dead or living, drunk or dry,

Soldier, I wish you well.

Epilogue

You smile upon your friend today,

Today his ills are over;

You hearken to the lover’s say,

And happy is the lover.

’Tis late to hearken, late to smile,

But better late than never;

I shall have lived a little while

Before I die for ever.

—–

Selections from Songs of Travel for Voice and Piano

By Ralph Vaughan Williams

Poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson

Vagabond

Give to me the life I love,

Let the lave go by me,

Give the jolly heaven above

And the byway nigh me.

Bed in the bush with stars to see,

Bread I dip in the river —

There’s the life for a man like me,

There’s the life for ever.

Let the blow fall soon or late,

Let what will be o’er me;

Give the face of earth around

And the road before me.

Wealth I seek not, hope nor love;

Nor a friend to know me;

All I seek, the heaven above

And the road below me.

Or let autumn fall on me

Where afield I linger,

Silencing the bird on tree,

Biting the blue finger:

White as meal the frosty field —

Warm the fireside haven —

Not to autumn will I yield,

Not to winter even!

Let the blow fall soon or late,

Let what will be o’er me;

Give the face of earth around,

And the road before me,

Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,

Nor a friend to know me,

All I ask, the heaven above,

And the road below me.

Let Beauty Awake

Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams,

Beauty awake from rest!

Let Beauty awake

For Beauty’s sake

In the hour when the birds awake in the brake

And the stars are bright in the west!

Let Beauty awake in the eve from the slumber of day,

Awake in the crimson eve!

In the day’s dusk end

When the shades ascend

Let her wake to the kiss of a tender friend

To render again and receive!

Whither must I Wander?

Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?

Hunger my driver, I go where I must.

Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;

Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.

Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree.

The true word of welcome was spoken in the door —

Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,

Kind folks of old, you come again no more.

Home was home then my dear, full of kindly faces,

Home was home then my dear, happy for the child.

Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;

Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.

Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,

Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.

Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,

The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.

Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moor-fowl,

Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers;

Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley,

Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours;

Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood —

Fair shine the day on the house with open door;

Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney —

But I go for ever and come again no more.

Bright is the Ring of Words

Bright is the ring of words

When the right man rings them,

Fair the fall of songs

When the singer sings them.

Still they are carolled and said —

On wings they are carried —

After the singer is dead

And the maker buried.

Low as the singer lies

In the field of heather,

Songs of his fashion bring

The swains together,

And when the west is red

With the sunset’s ambers,

The lover lingers and sings

And the maid remembers.

I Have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope

I have trod the upward and the downward slope;

I have endured and done in days before;

I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope;

And I have lived and loved, and closed the door.