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Let down the bars, O Death! The tired flocks come in Whose bleating ceases to repeat, Whose wandering is done. Thine is the stillest night, Thine the [securest]1 fold; Too near thou art for seeking thee, Too tender to be told.
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View text without footnotes1 Jordahl: "severest"
Text Authorship:
- by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems: Second Series, first published 1891 [author's text checked 1 time 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 Ernst Bacon (1898 - 1990), "Let down the bars", c1931 [ voice and piano ], from Songs from Emily Dickinson [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Samuel Barber (1910 - 1981), "Let down the bars, O Death", op. 8 no. 2 (1936), published 1936 [ SATB chorus a cappella ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Woods Duke (1899 - 1984), "Let down the bars", 1968, published 1978 [ soprano and piano ], from Six Poems by Emily Dickinson, no. 3, Southern Music Publishing Co. Inc., New York and Peer Musikverlag GMbH, Hamburg [sung text not yet checked]
- by Robert Arnold Jordahl (b. 1926), "Let down the bars, oh Death" [ voice and flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon ], from Death and the Maiden, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Thomas Pasatieri (b. 1945), "Let down the bars, O Death", published 1976 [ soprano, clarinet, violin, violoncello, and piano ], from Far from love, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Daniel Rogers Pinkham (1923 - 2006), "Let down the bars, oh Death", from Called Home, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Vally Weigl, née Pick (c1894 - 1982), "Let down the bars" [ TTBB chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2019, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 8
Word count: 42
Heb auf die Schranken, Tod! Die matten Herden nahn, ihr Blöken stirbt allmählich fort, ihr Tagwerk ist getan. Dein ist die stillste Nacht, dein ist der beste Hort; zu nah, als dass man nach dir sucht, zu sanft für weitres Wort.
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Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2019 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), no title, appears in Poems: Second Series, first published 1891
This text was added to the website: 2019-01-05
Line count: 8
Word count: 41