If I had but two little wings

Henry Thomas Smart’s SATB partsong If I had but two little wings opens with an appealingly simple melodic idea, presented with a homophonic texture that soon gives way to more imitative writing. The composer deftly charts the contrasting moods of the text, from the wistful longing for escape and reunion to the profound loneliness of waking. The music rises to a passionate climax on the repeated assertion, ‘I’m always with you in my sleep!’, before subsiding into a gentle, rocking motion that finally dissolves into the quiet contentment of dreaming the night away. This is an affecting and well-crafted setting of a touching secular lyric.