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'One that is ever kind', recorded at the 2022 Spring Song Festival.
Text
One that is ever kind
English source:
William Butler Yeats
One that is ever kind said yesterday:
'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey
And little shadows come about her eyes.
Time can but make it easier to be wise,
Tho' now it's hard
Till trouble is at an end.
And so, be patient,
Be wise and patient, friend.'
But heart there is no comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again,
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more fiercely. Ah, she had not these ways,
When all the wild summer was in her gaze.
Oh heart, oh heart!
If she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted.
'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey
And little shadows come about her eyes.
Time can but make it easier to be wise,
Tho' now it's hard
Till trouble is at an end.
And so, be patient,
Be wise and patient, friend.'
But heart there is no comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again,
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more fiercely. Ah, she had not these ways,
When all the wild summer was in her gaze.
Oh heart, oh heart!
If she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted.
Composer
Rebecca Clarke
Anglo-American composer Rebecca Clarke was born in 1886 in Harrow, London. Classified by Gramophone as ‘one of the very best of her time’, Clarke is best known for her instrumental works - most notably her 1919 Viola Sonata. Her vocal music is…
Poet
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of the Irish literary establishment, he helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served two…