I fear you, Loveliness; Before the look of you, Your far yet intimate face, My song crumbles in two. Less am I than a tower; Or a pool's thin, wrecked gold; Or great bells loose at dusk; Or a shepherd and a fold; Or a few violets — That straggle April-clear, Within a tumbled wood At ending of the year. Yet spend me at your will; Yet spend me low and high, Though I am naught at all; For if you go, I die!
Five Songs for Voice and Pianoforte , opus 163
by Fritz Bennicke Hart (1874 - 1949)
1. Before the look of you  [sung text not yet checked]
Authorship:
- by Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856 - 1935), "Before the look of you", appears in Wild Cherry
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Confirmed with Lizette Woodworth Reese, Wild Cherry, Baltimore, Md: The Norman, Remington Co, 1923.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
2. A bell in the wind  [sung text not yet checked]
The sun goes out, and leaves To the young dusk a cry, The cry of one who grieves And is like to die. There the old houses stand Down the sunken road; It clutches them like hand At throat; it drives like goad. Along the salmon dusk A hundred hurts of life; Around and through it all, The smell of the wild musk Is sharp as any knife.
Authorship:
- by Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856 - 1935), "A bell in the wind", appears in Wild Cherry
Go to the single-text view
Confirmed with Lizette Woodworth Reese, Wild Cherry, Baltimore, Md: The Norman, Remington Co, 1923.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
3. The change  [sung text not yet checked]
Once I forgot all, everything, In any day of fall or spring; And even when I went to bed, The little prayer I should have said. I cannot now forget at all Anything of spring or fall; — The splutter of wind within a hedge; Or smell of hyssop from the edge Of a hot field; the field itself Dry as a bone upon a shelf; Or deer that fleet across a wood; Or an old woman in a hood. My prayers rise up, each like a spear, So sharp that God cannot but hear.
Authorship:
- by Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856 - 1935), "The change", appears in Wild Cherry
Go to the single-text view
Confirmed with Lizette Woodworth Reese, Wild Cherry, Baltimore, Md: The Norman, Remington Co, 1923.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
4. Silence  [sung text not yet checked]
My seven lovers are come back; They stand about my gilded bed: One says: "Of mirths she had no lack;" One says: "Now all her griefs are sped." I lie there a white apricot bough The rain has tumbled to the grass, That folk will lift in a moment now Out of the cumbered road, and pass. One of the seven stands alone, His stark blue cloak like a gust behind; He stares down at me as at stone, With not a word of any kind.
Authorship:
- by Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856 - 1935), "Silence", appears in Wild Cherry
Go to the single-text view
Confirmed with Lizette Woodworth Reese, Wild Cherry, Baltimore, Md: The Norman, Remington Co, 1923.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
5. Wages  [sung text not yet checked]
"Pay me my wages, Grief; Pay, and be done with me." "I gave you ears to hear; I gave you eyes to see. "More music has the wind Than you can ever hold; A dogwood flower is white Laburnum stormy gold." "Pay me my broken house, My twelve month bare of him." "With melting memories I packed them to the brim. "You need but crook your hand, And he is at your side, More loving and more loved Than if he had not died!"
Authorship:
- by Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856 - 1935), "Wages", appears in Wild Cherry
Go to the single-text view
Confirmed with Lizette Woodworth Reese, Wild Cherry, Baltimore, Md: The Norman, Remington Co, 1923.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]