In the Gloaming

Taken from my personal Facebook Page, posted August 16, 2016 

Had to stop and take a photo tonight. Made me think of The Gloaming by Meta Orred

In the gloaming, oh, my darling,
When the lights are dim and low,
And the quiet shadows falling,
Softly come, and softly go;
When the winds are sobbing faintly,
With a gentle, unknown woe;
Will you think of me and love me?
As you did once long ago?

In the gloaming, oh, my darling,
Think not bitterly of me.
Tho’ I passed away in silence,
Left you lonely, set you free;
For my heart was crushed with longing,
What has been could never be;
It was best to leave you thus, dear,
Best for you and best for me.
It was best to leave you thus,
Best for you and best for me.

 

Interesting. Strange how a picture can make you remember details about a day. The feel. The sound. This was a night of restlessness for me. I was visiting my friend, The Viking and had to stop and take a photo. The night was filled with goodbye.

 

The gloaming refers to the dusk. The color and feel of the time of day when light is falling and is melancholy. Yeats described it as "the blue and the dim and the dark cloths. Of night and light and the half-light." You can just see him in front of a slow burning peat fire with a whiskey and pipe, reciting his poem with a tilt of his head.

 

The poem I have loved for years and years. In typical prose of the time, it laments a loss...Meta was a poet in England in the 1870s and 1880s. It was an adaptation. There's tragic history about it...

""In the Gloaming," it comes from Orred's book, entitled simply Poems. The words were set to a tune "in the Irish style" by Annie Fortescue Harrison, later Lady Hill. The words were first published in 1874, and the song was tremendously popular in the United States in 1877.Whether Miss Orred knew the story of the composer's life or not, the facts are (purportedly), that Annie Fortescue Harrison, daughter of a Scottish MP, had been in love with Lord Arthur Hill (County Down, Ireland), but the marriage was frowned upon by his family. Miss Harrison went to England and became a composer, writing the music to this song (as well as instrumentals and musicals). Lord Hill married another woman named Anne, who died the following year. A few years later, at a concert in England, he heard this song performed and the lyrics and tune strongly reminded him of his lost love, so he tracked her down and reader, he married her."

This poem always gets me. Fleeting love. Sadness at having to say goodbye knowing it is inevitable. But, necessary. Scottish and Irish are rather dramatic that way. I think that's why I love Yeats. William Butler Yeats...*sigh*

 

I am always thinking about music in relation to photos I take. It's one of those things that's kind of weird about me. Perhaps one of these days, I'll set music to my photos so you can see the soundtrack to my life...