[Cuala Press, Dublin.] Printed publication: number of ‘A Broadside’, limited to 300 copies, with two poems, one by Padraic Colum, set to music by Arthur Duff, each with a hand-coloured illustration by Harry Kernoff. From the Lynd archive.
An attractive item on four unpaginated folio pages, in a bifolium. Uncommon. In fair condition, lightly aged and creased, but not folded, with small closed tear at head of first leaf. Drophead title: ‘No. 7 (New Series) July 1935. / A Broadside / Editors: W. B. Yeats and F. R. Higgins; Musical Editor, Arthur Duff. Published monthly at the Cuala Press, One Hundred and Thirty Three Lower Baggot Street, Dublin.’ At bottom left of first page: ‘300 copies only.’ At foot of last page: ‘The illustrations on this Broadside are by Harry Kernoff, A.R.H.A.’ Beneath the drop-head title is a large illustration of a man, newspaper under his arm, tramping home on a windy day along a country path to a cottage where a woman waits. It is coloured in green, pink, red, brown and grey. Beneath the illustration begins the poem to which it refers: Padraic Colum’s ‘A Ballad Maker’, beginning ‘Once I loved a maiden fair, / Over the hills and far away, / Lands she had and lovers to spare, / Over the hills and far away.’ At the foot of the second page is Duff’s score for the poem, which concludes at the head of the third page. It is followed by an illustration of an exotically-dressed lady washing her feet while sitting on steps in a Dublin street. It is coloured in green, blue, purple, red and orange. It is followed by an anonymous eight-line poem titled ‘The Spanish Lady’, beginning: ‘As I was walking through Dublin City / At the hour of twelve in the night / Who should I see but a Spanish Lady / Washing her feet by candle light;’. At the head of the last page is a short musical score, headed ‘Tune to “The Spanish Lady”’. The item is from the Lynd archive, and there are pencil notes of keys to both scores, apparently by Sylvia Lynd. Also in pencil, on the first page, is what looks like the word ‘Oil’, but by comparison with other items from the archive it is the price: ‘6d’.