Dale Dykins

Three Songs of A.E. Housman


Composer Dale Dykins has set three poems by A. E. Housman for voice and piano.

Photo of A. E. Housman
Alfred Edward Housman
(1859 - 1936)

The recordings heard on this page feature Christopher McCafferty, tenor, and Sandy Rawson, piano, performing at the Pleasure for the Ear concert in Seattle on February 8, 2008.

The Land of Lost Content                              
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.
Far in a Western Brookland                        
Far in a western brookland
That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
By pools I used to know.

There, in the windless night-time,
The wanderer, marvelling why,
Halts on the bridge to hearken
How soft the poplars sigh.


 He hears: no more remembered
In fields where I was known,
Here I lie down in London
And turn to rest alone.

There, by the starlit fences,
The wanderer halts and hears
My soul that lingers sighing
About the glimmering weirs.
With Rue My Heart Is Laden                        
With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.


 By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.

For availability of the score contact Burke & Bagley

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