Gurney wrote hundreds of poems and more than 300 songs but only set a handful of his own poems to music, the best known being "Severn Meadows". His well-known compositions include his "Five Elizabethan Songs" (or 'The Elizas' as he called them), written in 1913-14 while he was still as student at the Royal College of Music. The song cycles "Ludlow and Teme" (published 1923) and "The Western Playland", (published 1926), both settings of poetry by A. E. Housman, were prepared for publication with the help of admirers and friends, including Gerald Finzi and his wife Joy, Howard Ferguson and Marion Scott. Oxford University Press issued two sets of ten songs in 1938, a year after his death, selected and edited by Finzi and Ferguson. Three further sets of ten songs came out in 1952, 1959 and 1979.