MB1020
Ballad of lost ladye
Music: Michael Buck, Words: Helen B. Cruickshank (1886-1975)
Voicing: SATB
Performance time approx: 2m 30s
Range S: d' – d'' / A: a – g' / T: e – d' / B: A – a
Price code: B
Complexity:
This piece is part of the set "Three Helen B. Cruickshank songs".
The set also includes:
Cruickshank’s ballad-like poem is given a shifting tonality and a sequence of imperfect cadences that, like the story, keep us guessing how and where the song will end. The unexplained discovery of the body of a visitor in the early morning beside the Sithean Mor (great fairy mound) on the small, lovely and historic island of Iona happened within the last century.
O siller, siller shone the mune
An' quaiet swang the door,
An' eerie skraighed the flaughtered gulls
As she gaed by the shore.
O saft tae her the meadow girse,
But set wi' rock the hill,
An' scored wi' bluid her ladye feet
Or she cam' the place intill.
The sheen o' steel was in her hand,
The sheen o' stars in her een,
An' she wad open the fairy hill
An' she wad let oot the queen.
There cam' a shepherd owre the hill
When day began tae daw;
And is this noo a seggit ewe
Or flourish frae the schaw?
It wasna lamb nor seggit ewe
Nor flourish frae the schaw,
It was the ladye bright an' still,
But she had won awa'.
The peace an' loveliness upon
Her broo said, 'Lat abee,
Here fand I that I sairly socht,
Ye needna peety mee.'
Helen B. Cruickshank (used with permission)