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Edward Thomas

by Toby Darling

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1.
Like The Touch of Rain Intro F/A F/E Dm E7 x2 F/A F/E D9 E7 Like the touch of rain she was Am G E7 On a man's flesh and hair and eyes Am Dm7 Em Dm7 When the joy of walking thus Am G E7 Has taken him by surprise: F C With the love of the storm he burns, Dm7 Em Am G E7 He sings, he laughs, well I know how, F C But forgets when he returns Dm7 Em Am G E7 As I shall not forget her 'Go now'. Those two words shut a door Between me and the blessed rain That was never shut before And will not open again. Edward Thomas F/A = xx756x F/E = x7x56x Dm = x577xx E7 = x7675x
2.
Adlestrop 03:43
Adlestrop BY EDWARD THOMAS Yes. I remember Adlestrop— The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June. The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. No one left and no one came On the bare platform. What I saw Was Adlestrop—only the name And willows, willow-herb, and grass, And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, No whit less still and lonely fair Than the high cloudlets in the sky. And for that minute a blackbird sang Close by, and round him, mistier, Farther and farther, all the birds Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
3.
Words 04:52
Words (Edward Thomas) Out of us all That make rhymes Will you choose Sometimes - As the winds use A crack in a wall Or a drain, Their joy or their pain To whistle through - Choose me, You English words? I know you: You are light as dreams, Tough as oak, Precious as gold, As poppies and corn, Or an old cloak: Sweet as our birds To the ear, As the burnet rose In the heat Of Midsummer: Strange as the races Of dead and unborn: Strange and sweet Equally, And familiar, To the eye, As the dearest faces That a man knows, And as lost homes are: But though older far Than oldest yew, - As our hills are, old, - Worn new Again and again: Young as our streams After rain: And as dear As the earth which you prove That we love. Make me content With some sweetness From Wales Whose nightingales Have no wings, - From Wiltshire and Kent And Herefordshire, - And the villages there, - From the names, and the things No less. Let me sometimes dance With you, Or climb Or stand perchance In ecstasy, Fixed and free In a rhyme, As poets do.
4.
Home 03:00
Home [“Often I had gone this way before”] BY EDWARD THOMAS Intro: Dm C Gm, Dm C Dm Dm C Gm Often I had gone this way before: But now it seemed I never could be Dm And never had been anywhere else; F Gm 'Twas home; one nationality Am Gm We had, I and the birds that sang, Am One memory. They welcomed me. I had come back That eve somehow from somewhere far: The April mist, the chill, the calm, Meant the same thing familiar And pleasant to us, and strange too, Yet with no bar. Bb Am Dm The thrush on the oaktop in the lane C Bb Sang his last song, or last but one; Am Gm And as he ended, on the elm Bb C Dm Another had but just begun C Bb His last; they knew no more than I C Dm The day was done. Then past his dark white cottage front A labourer went along, his tread Slow, half with weariness, half with ease; And, through the silence, from his shed The sound of sawing rounded all That silence said.
5.
Beauty 03:31
Beauty WHAT does it mean? Tired, angry, and ill at ease, No man, woman, or child alive could please Me now. And yet I almost dare to laugh Because I sit and frame an epitaph-- "Here lies all that no one loved of him And that loved no one." Then in a trice that whim Has wearied. But, though I am like a river At fall of evening when it seems that never Has the sun lighted it or warmed it, while Cross breezes cut the surface to a file, This heart, some fraction of me, hapily Floats through a window even now to a tree Down in the misting, dim-lit, quiet vale; Not like a pewit that returns to wail For something it has lost, but like a dove That slants unanswering to its home and love. There I find my rest, and through the dusk air Flies what yet lives in me. Beauty is there Edward Thomas
6.
The Sorrow of True Love BY EDWARD THOMAS Am C G Dm The sorrow of true love is a great sorrow Am G F Am And true love parting blackens a bright morrow: Am Dm G Dm Yet almost they equal joys, since their despair Dm Em Bb F Is but hope blinded by its tears, and clear Am Dm Am Dm G Dm G Dm Above the storm the heavens wait to be seen. F C Dm Am But greater sorrow from less love has been F C Dm G That can mistake lack of despair for hope Bb C Dm G And knows not tempest and the perfect scope Am Dm Am Dm Am Dm Am Dm Of summer, but a frozen drizzle perpetual F C Dm Am Of drops that from remorse and pity fall Bb C Dm F And cannot ever shine in the sun or thaw, Dm Am Bb C Dm Removed eternally from the sun’s law.
7.
Rain 03:21
'Rain' Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me Remembering again that I shall die And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks For washing me cleaner than I have been Since I was born into this solitude. Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon: But here I pray that none whom once I loved Is dying to-night or lying still awake Solitary, listening to the rain, Either in pain or thus in sympathy Helpless among the living and the dead, Like a cold water among broken reeds, Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff, Like me who have no love which this wild rain Has not dissolved except the love of death, If love it be towards what is perfect and Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
8.
THE NEW HOUSE (Edward Thomas) Intro: F#m Bm A E F#m Bm A C#7 F#m Bm Now first, as I shut the door, A I was alone E In the new house; and the wind F#m Began to moan. F#m Bm Old at once was the house, A E And I was old; F#m Bm My ears were teased with the dread C#7 Of what was foretold, A G D Em Nights of storm, days of mist, without end; F#m Bm Sad days when the sun D Em C#m F#m Shone in vain: old griefs and griefs C#m F# Not yet begun. Intro instrumental D A All was foretold me; naught Em F#m Could I foresee; Bm A But I learned how the wind would sound Em A After these things should be. Intro Instrumental end on F#m
9.
The Owl 04:43
The Owl BY EDWARD THOMAS F#maj7 Emaj7 G#m F# Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved; B A G#m Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof F#maj7 Emaj7 G#m F# Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest B A G#m Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof. C#m G#m F# Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest, C#m B F#m Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I. B D A All of the night was quite barred out except Em Bm x4 An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry Shaken out long and clear upon the hill, No merry note, nor cause of merriment, But one telling me plain what I escaped And others could not, that night, as in I went. And salted was my food, and my repose, Salted and sobered, too, by the bird's voice Speaking for all who lay under the stars, Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.
10.
Tears 03:19
Tears by Edward Thomas Intro: G D6 Am9 (3xx03x, xx0202, x0200x) x4 G Em D IT seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen-- D Em Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts, did fall--that day G Bm7 C When twenty hounds streamed by me, not yet combed out Am G But still all equals in their rage of gladness Em D Upon the scent, made one, like a great dragon Am C G In Blooming Meadow that bends towards the sun D Am And once bore hops: and on that other day F C When I stepped out from the double-shadowed Tower G Bm Into an April morning, stirring and sweet C Am G And warm. Strange solitude was there and silence. Em A mightier charm than any in the Tower D Am Possessed the courtyard. They were changing guard C G D Soldiers in line, young English countrymen, Am F C F#m Fair-haired and ruddy, in white tunics. Drums Bm F#m Bm And fifes were playing "The British Grenadiers". C G The men, the music piercing that solitude Am F#m Bm F#m Bm And silence, told me truths I had not dreamed C G Am And have forgotten since their beauty passed. G D6 Am9 x 3 G
11.
The Child on the Cliffs BY EDWARD THOMAS Dm Am Gm Mother, the root of this little yellow flower A Dm Among the stones has the taste of quinine. Am Gm Things are strange to-day on the cliff. The sun shines so bright, A Dm And the grasshopper works at his sewing-machine C G A So hard. Here’s one on my hand, mother, look; Dm C A7 I lie so still. There’s one on your book. But I have something to tell more strange. So leave Your book to the grasshopper, mother dear,— Like a green knight in a dazzling market-place,— And listen now. Can you hear what I hear Far out? Now and then the foam there curls And stretches a white arm out like a girl’s. Fishes and gulls ring no bells. There cannot be A chapel or church between here and Devon, With fishes or gulls ringing its bell,—hark!— Somewhere under the sea or up in heaven. “It’s the bell, my son, out in the bay On the buoy. It does sound sweet to-day.” Sweeter I never heard, mother, no, not in all Wales. I should like to be lying under that foam, Dead, but able to hear the sound of the bell, And certain that you would often come And rest, listening happily. I should be happy if that could be.

about

These are all poems by Edward Thomas which I have set to music.

I have made videos for all of these settings which can be found at:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY6dfvc2sgI3M03g_HvxRwQ0yPpokDj6r

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released June 20, 2015

Poems by Edward Thomas
Music by Toby Darling
All instruments programmed/played by Toby Darling
Produced using Cubasis VST.

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Toby Darling Penang, Malaysia

Amateur enthusiast.
Feel free to do anything you want with these tracks, I am not interested in making money from music.

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