''Songs Sacred and Profane'' is a

song cycle A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice ...

for voice and piano composed in 192931 by John Ireland (18791962). (The John Ireland Trust gives a composition date of 1943, but appears to be in error unless the composer revised the work in that year.) It consists of settings of six poems by various poets. A typical performance takes about 14 minutes. The songs are: # "The Advent" (

Alice Meynell Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell (née Thompson; 11 October 184727 November 1922) was a British writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet. Early years and family Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson was born in ...

(18471922); "Meditation", from ''Preludes'' (1875)) # "Hymn for a Child" (

Sylvia Townsend Warner Sylvia Nora Townsend Warner (6 December 1893 – 1 May 1978) was an English novelist, poet and musicologist, known for works such as ''Lolly Willowes'', '' The Corner That Held Them'', and ''Kingdoms of Elfin''. Life Sylvia Townsend Warner wa ...

(18931978)) # "My Fair" (Meynell) # " The Salley Gardens" (

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

(18651939); "An Old Song Re-Sung", from '' The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems'' (1889)) # "The Soldier's Return" (Warner; from ''The Espalier'' (1925)) # "The Scapegoat" (Warner; from ''The Espalier'')

References

Song cycles by John Ireland Classical song cycles in English 1931 compositions Adaptations of works by W. B. Yeats {{classical-composition-stub