Alone She Cuts and Binds the Grain

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Alone she cuts and binds the grain

Author: William Wordsworth
Tune: DEVOTION (56165)
Published in 1 hymnal

Piano/Organ
	An American Sonata for Solo Instrument a…

Representative Text

1 Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
and sings a melancholy strain:
O listen! for the vale profound
is overflowing with the sound.

2 Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
for old, unhappy far-off things,
and for the battles long ago.

3 Or is it some more humble lay,
familiar matter of today?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
that once has been, may be again?

4 I listened, motionless and still,
and, as I mounted up the hill,
the music in my heart I bore
long after it was heard no more.

Source: Singing the Living Tradition #333

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Author: William Wordsworth

Wordsworth, William, the poet, the son of an attorney, was born at Cockermouth in 1770, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1791. Devoting himself to literature, and especially to poetry, he gradually rose into the front rank of English poets. His works include Lyrical Ballads, 1798; Poems; The Prelude; The Excursion, 1814, &c. All his poetical productions were collected and republished under his own supervision in 7 vols., in 1842. He died at Kydal Mount, near Grasmere, in 1850. Notwithstanding his rank and reputation as a poet, his pieces used as hymns are limited to the following extracts from his poems:— 1. Not seldom clad in radiant vest. Christ, the Unchangeable. This is No. v. of five "… Go to person page >

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