David Harley Words & Music

This was a rehearsal for a gig happening in July, to see if the song would sound OK on electric guitar instead of acoustic, to save me lugging multiple guitars. But I like the harp-like quality of the arpeggios so much I thought I’d try recording it that way. This was a Taylor T5Z using the under-fretboard humbucker and the body sensor (similar to but not the same as a transducer). My setting of a poem by William Butler Years. My tune has no resemblance to the reel of the same name.

Backup:

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?