The House [DE LA MARE poem set to music]
Channel: tobydarling
Date: 06/01/2020

The House (Walter de la Mare)
E B A E
A lane at the end of Old Pilgrim Street
C#m B A
Leads on to a sheep-track over the moor,
E B A B
Till you come at length to where two streams meet,
F#m A B
The brook called Liss, and the shallow Stour.
F#m E B
Their waters mingle and sing all day —
F#m E B
Rushes and kingcups, rock and stone ; 
F#m C#m G#m
And aloof in the valley, forlorn and gray,
A C#m B
Is a house whence even the birds have flown.
Its ramshackle gate swings crazily; 
but No sickle covets its seeding grass ;
There's a cobbled path to a door close-shut; 
But no face shows at the window-glass.
No smoke wreathes up in the empty air
From the chimney over its weed-green thatch ; 
Briar and bryony ramble there ;
And no thumb tirls at the broken latch.

E D
Even the warbling water seems
C#m D
To make lone music for none to hear ;
Fmaj7 C
Else is a quiet found only in dreams,
G B7
And in dreams this foreboding, though not of fear.

Yes, often at dusk-fall when nearing home —
The hour of the crescent and evening star —
Again to the bridge and the streams I come, 
Where the sedge and the rushes and kingcups are :

And I stand, and listen, and sigh — 
In vain; Since only of Fancy's the face I see ;
Yet its eyes in the twilight on mine remain, 
And it seems to be craving for company.




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