I woke in the midsummer not-to-call night in the white and the walk of the morning: The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a fingernail held to the candle, Or paring of paradisaical fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow of dark Maenefa the mountain; A cusp yet clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him entangled him, not quite utterly. This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily, Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me eyelid and eyelid of slumber.
Suite for High Voice
Song Cycle by Russell Woollen (1923 - 1994)
1. Moonrise  [sung text not yet checked]
Authorship:
- by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889), "Moonrise", appears in Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, first published 1918
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]2. Pied Beauty  [sung text not yet checked]
Glory be to God for dappled things -- For skies of couple-colour as a [brinded]1 cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; Landscape plotted and pieced -- fold, fallow, and [plough]2. [And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.]3 All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.
Authorship:
- by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889), "Pied Beauty", written 1877, appears in Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, first published 1918
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Erkki Pullinen) , "Monimuotoista kauneutta", copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
1 sometimes modernized to "brindled"
2 Mitchell: "trim"
2 omitted by Mitchell
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
3. Peace  [sung text not yet checked]
When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut, Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs? When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it? O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite, That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo, He comes to brood and sit.
Authorship:
- by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889), "Peace", appears in Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, first published 1918
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]4. The Starlit Night  [sung text not yet checked]
Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies! O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there! Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes! The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies! Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare! Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare! -- Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize. Buy then! bid then! -- What? -- Prayer, patience, aims, vows. Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs! Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows! These are indeed the barn; withindoors house The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.
Authorship:
- by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889), "The starlight night"
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]5. Jesu Dulcis Memoria  [sung text checked 1 time]
Jesus to cast one thought upon Makes gladness after He is gone, But more than honey and honeycomb Is to come near and take Him home. [No music so can touch the ear, No news is heard of such sweet cheer]1, Thought half [so dear]2 there is not one As Jesus God the Father's Son. Jesu, their hope who go astray, So kind to those who ask the way, So good to those who look for Thee, To those who find what must Thou be? [ ... ] To speak of that no tongue will do Nor letters suit to spell it true: But they can guess who have tasted of What Jesus is and what is love. Jesu, a springing well Thou art, Daylight to head and treat to heart, And matched with Thee there's nothing glad [That men have wished for or have had]3. [ ... ] Wish us Good morning when we wake And light us, Lord, with Thy day-break. Beat from our brains the thicky night And fill the world up with delight. [ ... ] Be our delight, O Jesu, now As by and by our prize art Thou, And grant our glorying may be World without end alone in Thee.
Authorship:
- by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889), "Jesu, dulcis memoria" [an adaptation]
Based on:
- a text in Latin by St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091 - 1153)
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Woollen: "Song never was so sweet in ear,/ Word never was such news to hear"
2 Woollen: "as sweet"
3 Woollen: "That can be wished or can be had"
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Thomas A. Gregg