1. golden is the furze.

2. cuckoo.

3. birch copse.

4. skylark.

5. peewits.

6. sparkling waterfall leaps.

1. smack.

2. spilling the broth.

3. bashing.

4. fine.

1. working day.

2. spider.

3. truckle bed.

1. learned.

2. and though it died or it knew you.

1. frolicsome.

2. great hall.

3. mischievous.

4. rude.

1. Inspired by a photograph in The Times Literary Supplement (10 May 1941), reproduced from Grim Glory: Pictures of Britain under Fire, dedicated to Winston Churchill.

1. bread sops.

2. soft.

3. potatoes for a big man.

4. fellow.

5. make.

6. gate.

1. Inspired by Soutar’s horror at the Spanish Civil War.

1. the old oak’s felled. Graham Johnson relates (The Britten Companion) how he was present at a rehearsal of the cycle in 1971. Britten, at the end of the run-through, asked Johnson if he thought that the word ‘doun’ was repeated too many times? And before there was time to reply, he defended the repetitions: ‘It really IS down, you see; it’s the end of everything.’

1. softly, quietly.

2. fresh, cool.

3. parted bone from bone.

4. wakeful.

5. slipped away.