”There are seven that pull the thread” is a song with words by W. B. Yeats, and music written by the English composer Edward Elgar

Edward Elgar

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...

 in 1901.

The song is from Act I of a play Grania and Diarmid

Diarmuid and Grania

Diarmuid and Grania is a play in poetic prose co-written by George Moore and W. B. Yeats in 1901, with incidental music by the English composer Edward Elgar.-Play:...

co-written in poetic prose by Yeats and the Irish novelist George Moore

George Moore (novelist)

George Augustus Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s...

. This song and the incidental music that Elgar wrote for the play form his Op. 42.

The play was dedicated to Henry Wood

Henry Wood (conductor)

Sir Henry Joseph Wood, CH was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences...

, and its first performance was at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin in October 1901.

The tiny song is for one of the characters, Laban, to sing at her spinning-wheel. Elgar accompanies Yeats' prose with delicate and imaginative orchestration. He employs the muted strings and the woodwind of the orchestra. The song is unhurried, and delicate, in little recitative-like sections. The dynamic indicated is no more than a soft pianissimo

Pianissimo

Pianissimo is an Italian word, meaning "very soft". It can mean:*Pianissimo, refers to the volume of a soft sound or soft note.*Pianissimo Peche, a brand of Japanese cigarettes made by Japan Tobacco....

.

Lyrics

There are seven that pull the thread -

There is one under the waves,

There is one where the winds are wove,

There is one in the old grey house

Where the dew is made before dawn.

One lives in the house of the sun,

And one in the house of the moon,

And one lies under the boughs of the golden apple tree,

And one spinner is lost.

Holiest, holiest seven

Put all your pow'r on the thread

That I've spun in the house tonight.

Recordings

• Elgar: Complete Songs for Voice & Piano Amanda Roocroft (soprano), Reinild Mees (piano)