The Echoing Green (Percy Walter de Courcy Smale)

Music files

L E G E N D

Disclaimer

How to download

ICON	SOURCE
	Pdf
	Mp3
	File details
	Help

• (Posted 2023-10-06)  CPDL #76089:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-10-06).   Score information: Letter, 8 pages, 598 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: The Echoing Green
Composer: Percy Walter de Courcy Smale
Lyricist: William Blake
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB, some TB divisi
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1910 Stainer & Bell
Description: 

Original text and translations

English text

The Sun does arise,
And make happy the skies;
The merry bells ring
To welcome the Spring;
The skylark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around
To the bells’ cheerful sound,
While our sports shall be seen
On the Echoing Green.

Old John, with white hair,
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say:
‘Such, such were the joys
When we all, girls and boys,
In our youth time were seen
On the Echoing Green.’

Till the little ones, weary,
No more can be merry;
The sun does descend,
And our sports have an end.
Round the laps of their mothers
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest,
And sport no more seen
On the darkening Green.