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Text
The Ash Grove
English source:
Harry Rodney Bennett
Away in the shadows a lone bird is singing,
The wind whispers low in a sighing refrain;
Their music makes memory’s voices go winging:
The Ash Grove in beauty I see once again;
The voices of friends that the log years have taken,
Oh faintly I hear them, the song and the word.
How much in the heart can so little awaken:
The wind in the leaves and the song of a bird.
How little we knew, as we laughed there so lightly,
And time seemed to us to stretch endless away,
The hopes that then shone like a vision so brightly
Could fade as a dream at the coming of day!
And still, spite of sorrow, whene’er I remember,
My thoughts will return like a bird to the nest,
No matter though summer may wane to December,
And there in the ash grove my heart be at rest.
The wind whispers low in a sighing refrain;
Their music makes memory’s voices go winging:
The Ash Grove in beauty I see once again;
The voices of friends that the log years have taken,
Oh faintly I hear them, the song and the word.
How much in the heart can so little awaken:
The wind in the leaves and the song of a bird.
How little we knew, as we laughed there so lightly,
And time seemed to us to stretch endless away,
The hopes that then shone like a vision so brightly
Could fade as a dream at the coming of day!
And still, spite of sorrow, whene’er I remember,
My thoughts will return like a bird to the nest,
No matter though summer may wane to December,
And there in the ash grove my heart be at rest.
Composer
Roger Quilter
Roger Cuthbert Quilter was an English composer, known particularly for his songs.
