1. Sitwell prefaced the poem with these words from Verlaine: ‘Dame Souris trotte grise dans le noir’, from the opening stanza of ‘Impression fausse’ from Parallèlement (1889), set to music by, among others, Gustave Charpentier and Poldowski.

1. Sitwell wrote to a correspondent in 1937 that ‘the poem was written like this; it was about a year after I had emerged from a longish period of poverty in London […] (I am the poor member of a rich family) […] the whole experience was mine and the servant’s, but seen through my mind.’ Unlike the other poems printed here, which were published in Sitwell’s Façade, ‘Aubade’ first appeared in Bucolic Comedies.

1. See p. 440.

2. Reference to the Charge of the Light Brigade, led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854. Tennyson can be heard on the internet reading his poem, recorded on a wax cylinder in 1890.

1. The poem echoes many lines of Verlaine’s ‘Colloque sentimental’ from Fêtes galantes (1869).

1. Calliope, one of the Muses, presided over eloquence and heroic poetry; Io, priestess of Juno at Argos, was seduced by Jupiter and subsequently persecuted by Juno; Pomona was a Roman nymph who presided over gardens and fruit trees; Antiope, daughter of the King of Thebes, was beloved by Jupiter and gave birth to his twins; Echo was one of Juno’s attendants and Jupiter’s confidante in amorous matters. Juno deprived her of the power of speech and she was only permitted to answer questions that were put to her; Clio, the first of the Muses, presided over history.

2. Panope was one of the Nereides, whom sailors invoked during storms.

3. Heliogabalus was a Roman emperor, assassinated by decapitation.

1. ‘the supreme ruler of one or other of the great Muslim powers or countries of the Middle Ages’ (OED).

1. ace of spades – card game.

1. the sons of Noah.

1. Sitwell was so moved by Britten’s setting of ‘Still falls the Rain’ that she wrote to the composer on 26 April 1955: ‘I am so haunted and so alone with that wonderful music and its wonderful performance that I was incapable of writing before now. I had no sleep at all on the night of the performance. And I can think of nothing else. It was certainly one of the greatest experiences in all my life as an artist […] I can never begin to thank you for the glory you have given my poem.’ Britten, delighted with Sitwell’s response, wrote her a letter explaining how her poetry had not only inspired him but had also contributed to his development as a composer: ‘[…] writing this work has helped me so much in my development as a composer […] I feel with this work & The Turn of the Screw […] that I am on the threshold of a new musical world (for me, I am not pretentious about it!) […] But your great poem has dragged something from me that was latent there, & shown me what lies before me.’

2. See Acts i: xix. In Aramaic, Akeldama – the ground was previously known as the Potter’s Field, a site that used to provide potter’s clay and was used for burials.

3. See Luke xvi. xix–xxxi. Dives (Lat. ‘rich man’) ignored the plight of Lazarus, the beggar who appeared at his gate. At their deaths, Lazarus went to Abraham’s bosom, Dives to Hades. The story illustrates the theme of how wealth blinds men to the need of their fellows.

4. Britten, not Sitwell, must have had in mind Noel Mewton-Wood, to whom the work is dedicated. This prodigiously talented pianist (he can be heard on LP accompanying Peter Pears in Tippett’s Boyhood’s End and The Heart’s Assurance) committed suicide in Wigmore Street at the age of thirty-one, devastated by the death of his older lover.

5. Britten’s repugnance towards bloodsports and his hatred of cruelty to animals can also be seen in Tit for Tat, Our Hunting Fathers and Who are These Children?

6. The quote is from the end of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.