Words to tunes, by C. F. Sharpe

(In all these, I often choose words largely for their sound)

Lullaby for a friend's baby (Tune: Brahms's "Lullaby")

"Little Daisy, my darling, sleep soft on your pillow

With a smile on your face, not a tear in your eye.

And when dawn tips the sky, I shall be by your side.

And when dawn tips the sky, I shall be by your side."

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Pilgrimage (Tune: Schubert's "Trout")

"I hear the brooklet gushing, from its rocky fountain near

And down the valley rushing, so fresh and wondrous clear.

I know not what came o'er me, or who the counsel gave,

But I must hasten onwards, all with my pilgrim's stave."

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Homage to Rupert Brooke (Tune: prelude to Act 3 of "Carmen", by Bizet)

"The boy who sang by Granta's stream

Of spires and fenland, tears and laughter in the morning

Taken by a wider dream

Out eastward sees the rising sun of early dawning

Hears a voice calling loudly now for songs of war and duty

Beauty

Youth and honour lie in Flanders field

And by the banks of Somme and Yser seek for fame

A sword to draw, a lance to wield

A shield to bear the man who dies to win a name

So hear him sing: Now may God be thanked, who matched us with his hour

Power

Loud rejoicing as the boat sails away

To sunbaked islands, seas that once were dark as wine

Where heroes fought a burning day

And deeds as brightly as the Hellene sun would shine

And so he goes, seeking Ilium's walls and Hector's martial story 

For the

 

Boy who sang by Granta's Stream 

In storm and glory to the war 

Is gone"

(Footnote: Rupert Brooke, the beautiful heart-throb poet of the early 1910s, hailed the outbreak of the First World War and volunteered for the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. From his classical education, he would have known that Gallipoli could be seen from the ramparts of Troy. The imagery of this poem is deliberately archaic, because Brooke had no idea what the war would be like - but, the, neither did anyone else)