The Blackbird, op. 59, no. 3

"The Blackbird" is the third song of Horatio Parker's Four Songs, Op. 59, published in 1904.

Date: 1904Composer: Horatio ParkerText: William Ernest Henley

Print vitals & song text

Text

The Blackbird
by William Ernest Henley

The nightingale has a lyre of gold,
The lark’s is a clarion call,
And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute,
But I love him best of all.

For his song is all of the joy of life,
And we in the mad, spring weather,
We two have listened till he sang
Our hearts and lips together.

Recordings

Up Toward the Sky

(Amy Marcy Beach, William Ernest Henley, Richard Hundley, Marianne Moore, James Purdy, Edward Rowland Sill, Gertrude Stein, Sara Teasdale and Virgil Thomson)

2017

Books

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