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Two butterflies went out at noon And waltzed [above a stream]1, Then stepped straight through the firmament And rested on a beam; And then together bore away Upon a shining sea, - Though never yet, in any port, Their coming mentioned be. If spoken by the distant bird, If met in ether sea By frigate or by merchantman, [Report was not]2 to me.
About the headline (FAQ)
View text without footnotes1 Hoekman: "upon a Farm"
2 Hoekman: "No notice was"
Text Authorship:
- by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), appears in Poems: Second Series, first published 1891 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Robert F. Baksa (b. 1938), "Two butterflies went out at noon", published 1978 [ mezzo-soprano, piano ], from Emily Dickinson Songs, no. 8 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ray Green (b. 1908), "Butterflies", published 1954 [ SSA chorus a cappella ], from Three Choral Songs [sung text not yet checked]
- by Daron Aric Hagen (b. 1961), "Two butterflies" [ voice and piano ], from Songs of Experience, no. 6 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Timothy Hoekman , "Two butterflies went out at noon", 2002, published 2006 [ voice and piano ], from To Make a Prairie, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Brodbin Kennedy , "Two butterflies went out at noon", published 1966 [ SS chorus a cappella ], from Sails, Robins, and Butterflies [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , no title, copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 65
Zwei Falter flogen mittags aus, gaukelten überm Bach, durchtanzten dann das Firmament - auf Lichtstrahl Rast hernach. Drauf schwebten sie zusammen fort, über ein glitzernd’ Meer, doch wurde nie an einem Port ihr Kommen je bemerkt. Ob sie der ferne Vogel sprach, ob sie auf lichtem Meer ein Seemann oder Kaufmann traf, dies drang nie zu mir her.
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Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2018 by Bertram Kottmann, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.
Bertram Kottmann. Contact: BKottmann (AT) t-online.de
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Based on:
- a text in English by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), appears in Poems: Second Series, first published 1891
This text was added to the website: 2018-06-22
Line count: 12
Word count: 57