A Shropshire Lad

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No 01: Loveliest of Trees

David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), David Owen Norris (piano)

Track 14 on CDH55089 [2'06]

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

No 02: When I was one-and-twenty

David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), David Owen Norris (piano)

Track 15 on CDH55089 [1'06]

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.’
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
‘The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a-plenty
And sold for endless rue.’
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

No 03: There pass the careless people

David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), David Owen Norris (piano)

Track 16 on CDH55089 [1'28]

There pass the careless people
That call their souls their own;
Here by the road I loiter,
How idle and alone.

His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

No 04: In summertime on Bredon

David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), David Owen Norris (piano)

Track 17 on CDH55089 [3'52]

In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her
In valleys miles away;
‘Come all to church, good people;
Good people, come and pray.’
But here my love would stay.

And I would turn and answer
Among the springing thyme
‘Oh, peal upon our wedding,
And we will hear the chime,
And come to church in time.’

But when the snows at Christmas
On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
And stole out unbeknown
And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only,
Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
And so to church went she,
And would not wait for me.

The bells they sound on Bredon,
And still the steeples hum,
‘Come all to church, good people,’
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

No 05: The street sounds to the soldiers' tread

David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), David Owen Norris (piano)

Track 18 on CDH55089 [2'06]

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.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

No 06: On the idle hill of summer

David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), David Owen Norris (piano)

Track 19 on CDH55089 [2'40]

On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow;
Woman bore me, I will rise.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

Christopher Maltman (baritone), Joseph Middleton (piano)

Track 3 on SIGCD592 [2'28] Download only

On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

Arthur Somervell was the first English composer to develop the song-cycle. A Shropshire Lad, published in 1904, was first performed by Harry Plunket Greene at the Aeolian Hall on 3 February 1905. On the idle hill of summer juxtaposes the beauty of an English summer landscape with the imminent fate of young men marching to war: ‘food for powder’, as Falstaff describes the ‘pitiful rascals’ about to fight at the Battle of Shrewsbury in Shakespeare’s Henry IV. The final line, ‘Woman bore me, I will rise’, refers tellingly to the Book of Job, xiv.: ‘Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble’: the young man of the poem will enlist and die young.

No 07: White in the moon the long road lies

David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), David Owen Norris (piano)

Track 20 on CDH55089 [3'17]

White in the moon the long road lies,
The moon stands blank above;
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.

Still hangs the hedge without a gust,
Still, still the shadows stay:
My feet upon the moonlit dust
Pursue the ceaseless way.

The world is round, so travellers tell,
And straight though reach the track,
Trudge on, trudge on, ’twill all be well,
The way will guide one back.

But ere the circle homeward hies
Far, far must it remove:
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

Christopher Maltman (baritone), Joseph Middleton (piano)

Track 8 on SIGCD592 [2'56] Download only

White in the moon the long road lies,
The moon stands blank above;
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.

Still hangs the hedge without a gust,
Still, still the shadows stay:
My feet upon the moonlit dust
Pursue the ceaseless way.

The world is round, so travellers tell,
And straight though reach the track,
Trudge on, trudge on, ‘twill all be well,
The way will guide one back.

But ere the circle homeward hies
Far, far must it remove:
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

White in the moon the long road lies describes a man leaving his love for an unknown destination, presumably the battlefield.

No 08: Think no more, lad, laugh, be jolly

David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), David Owen Norris (piano)

Track 21 on CDH55089 [1'28]

Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly:
Why should men make haste to die?
Empty heads and tongues a-talking
Make the rough road easy walking,
And the feather pate of folly
Bears the falling sky.

Oh, ’tis jesting, dancing, drinking
Spins the heavy world around.
If young hearts were not so clever,
Oh, they would be young for ever;
Think no more; ’tis only thinking
Lays lads underground.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

Christopher Maltman (baritone), Joseph Middleton (piano)

Track 13 on SIGCD592 [1'39] Download only

Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly;
Why should men make haste to die?
Empty heads and tongues a-talking
Make the rough road easy walking,
And the feather pate of folly
Bears the falling sky.

Oh, ‘tis jesting, dancing, drinking
Spins the heavy world around.
If young hearts were not so clever,
Oh, they would be young for ever;
Think no more; ‘tis only thinking
Lays lads underground.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

Think no more, lad deals with the need to be carefree and irresponsible in life—a common reaction to impending war.

No 09: Into my heart an air that kills

David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), David Owen Norris (piano)

Track 22 on CDH55089 [2'02]

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

Christopher Maltman (baritone), Joseph Middleton (piano)

Track 18 on SIGCD592 [1'55] Download only

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

Into my heart an air that kills is a poignant and wistful poem in which Housman describes his longing for the innocent land of childhood and the countryside west of Bromsgrove where he would roam happily as a young boy—the land of lost content.

No 10: The lads in their hundreds

David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), David Owen Norris (piano)

Track 23 on CDH55089 [2'52]

The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
There’s men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold.
The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,
And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

There’s chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,
And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,
And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,
And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell
The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;
And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell
And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

But now you may stare as you like and there’s nothing to scan;
And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not be told
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)

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