One of the more colourful, if not notorious, characters of British music was Peter Warlock. Like Arnold Bax he gained much inspiration from a sojourn in Ireland
“The Curlew” song cycle is a setting of some Yeats’ verse, taking its title from “He reproves the curlew” (the same He who also wishes for the cloths of heaven):
O, curlew, cry no more in the air,
Or only to the waters in the West;
Because your crying brings to my mind
Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair
That was shaken out over my breast:
There is enough evil in the crying of wind.
Séamus Sweeney 