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Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon Pleasant sights to see. Shires and towns from Airly Beacon, Love climbed up to me. I watched him striding past the mill, Through the meadow, up the hill. The sun was shining, air was still, I can see him now. (Refrain: Airly Beacon ............) Oh, the happy hours we lay, Deep in fern and new mown hay, Courting through the summer's day. Love was ne'er so strong. (Refrain: Airly Beacon ............) Oh, the weary haunt for me, All alone for all to see, With his baby on my knee. Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon Pleasant sights to see. Shires and towns from Airly Beacon, My son cares for me.
Programme Note provided by Philip Danesfield:
There is no place named Airly Beacon, yet most of us have been there. The original poem by Charles Kingsley can be found in The Golden Treasury and elsewhere. It is a well known and much loved poem, with a moral message and bleak ending that Kingsley, the clergyman, probably thought would help save young maidens from sin. Gustav Holst and a few others have previously set the poem to music, though none has gained popularity. It may be seen as a response from the female point of view to 'The Foggy Foggy Dew', a folk song set by Benjamin Britten and definitively performed by him and Peter Peers, and so a new setting of Kingsley's poem in that style for female voice seemed wanting.
As a song lyric, the poem is short, and too predictable in its conclusion for the modern world, so a more positive outcome is provided for the situation Kingsley described. Part of the original verse forms a refrain, with additional narrative story lines. It ends with the girl twenty years after her youth, contentedly reconciled with her situation. The passage of time between her wretched condition in that weary haunt and her happiness in middle age is represented by the four chords of bar 70 which are played very slowly, and my thanks go to Chopin and his Prelude No. 20 for that inspiration.
Text Authorship:
- by Philip Jones (b. 1946), as Philip Danesfield, copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission [an adaptation]
Based on:
- a text in English by Charles Kingsley (1819 - 1875), "Airly Beacon", appears in Andromeda and Other Poems, first published 1858
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Philip Jones (b. 1946), as Philip Danesfield, "Airly Beacon", first performed 2018 [ mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra or piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2024-12-02
Line count: 21
Word count: 112