Charles Villiers Stanford's 'The Blue Bird' is listed as the third of an Opus 119 set. Considered by scholars to be a classic example of English secular song, it invokes imagery of a ballad popularized during the Second World War, 'There'll be Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover'. Stanford's setting of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge's poem was written nearly 30 years before that conflict, and 4 years before England's involvement in World War I. Performed in concert by the Washington Collegium in St. Mark's Episcopal Church, the recording is posted in commemeration of the 90th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice to end World War I, at the 11th hour of the 11th day, of the 11th month. Text: The lake lay blue below the hill, O’er it as I looked, there flew Across the waters, cold and still, A bird whose wings were palest blue. The sky above was blue at last, The sky beneath me blue in blue, A moment, ‘ere the bird had passed, It caught its image as it flew.

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