Jenny Wren/The Bird Set Free/Crumbs/The Robin [DE LA MARE poems set to music]
Channel: tobydarling
Date: 2019-03-30

Jenny Wren
by Walter de la Mare

D
Of all the birds that rove and sing,
C# D - A
Near dwellings made for men,
D
None is so nimble, feat, and trim
F C
As Jenny Wren.

Dm Am
With pin-point bill, and a tail a-cock,
Dm G
So wildly shrill she cries,
Dm F C
The echoes on his roof-tree knock
A7
And fill the skies.

Never was sweeter seraph hid
Within so small a house —
A tiny, inch-long, eager, ardent,
Feathered mouse.

The Bird Set Free

‘No marvel, Sweet, you clap your wings
In hunger for the open sky;
I see your pretty flutterings
Will let you fly

‘But O, when in some shady grot
You preen your breast in noonday’s blue,
Be not your Susan quite forgot,
Who hungers too!’


Crumbs


Dm A7
You little birds I bring my crumbs,
Dm G
For now the cold of winter comes.
Dm A7
The North Wind blows down frozen rain;
Dm Am
The fields are white with snow again;
G F#m
The worm’s in house; the bare-twigged trees
Bm E7
Are thick with frost instead of bees;
D A Bm F#m
From running brooks all noise is gone;
G A7
And every pool lies still as stone

The Robin

A*  F#m C#m
As little Bess was walking home
C#m F#m G
She saw a robin on a stone
Bm E
He looked at her with bead-bright eye-
Bm C#7
Those two alone there, no-one by.

She gave him bread-crumbs dipped in milk,
She stroked his feather soft as silk.
Then leaning sidelong her fair head,
‘Sing sweet! I’m listening’, she said.

And he the dainty imp, he skips,
And pecks a crumb between her lips
And then, to his own wild being gone,
Left empty the round pebble-stone.

‘A*: x0707x

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