Shaken, The blossoms of lilac, And shattered, The atoms of purple. Green dip the leaves, Darker the bark, Longer the shadows. Sheer lines of poplar Shimmer with masses of silver And down in a garden old with years And broken walls of ruin and story, Roses rise with red rain-memories. May! In the open world The sun comes and finds your face, Remembering all.
When the south wind sings -- 7 Songs for Soprano and Piano on Poems by Carl Sandburg
Song Cycle by Juliana Hall (b. 1958)
1. Follies  [sung text checked 1 time]
Authorship:
- by Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)
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Researcher for this page: David Sims [Guest Editor]2. Mask  [sung text checked 1 time]
Fling your red scarf faster and faster, dancer. It is summer and the sun loves a million green leaves, masses of green. Your red scarf flashes across them calling and a-calling. The silk and flare of it is a great soprano leading a chorus Carried along in a rouse of voices reaching for the heart of the world. Your toes are singing to meet the song of your arms: Let the red scarf go swifter. Summer and the sun command you.
Authorship:
- by Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)
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Researcher for this page: David Sims [Guest Editor]3. Pearl fog  [sung text checked 1 time]
Open the door now. Go roll up the collar of your coat To walk in the changing scarf of mist. Tell your sins here to the pearl fog And know for once a deepening night Strange as the half-meanings Alurk in a wise woman’s mousey eyes. Yes, tell your sins And know how careless a pearl fog is Of the laws you have broken.
Authorship:
- by Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)
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Researcher for this page: David Sims [Guest Editor]4. The south wind says so  [sung text checked 1 time]
If the oriole calls like last year when the south wind sings in the oats, if the leaves climb and climb on a bean pole saying over a song learnt from the south wind, if the crickets send up the same old lessons found when the south wind keeps on coming, we will get by, we will keep on coming, we will get by, we will come along, we will fix our hearts over, the south wind says so.
Authorship:
- by Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)
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Researcher for this page: David Sims [Guest Editor]5. Under the harvest moon  [sung text checked 1 time]
Under the harvest moon, When the soft silver Drips shimmering Over the garden nights, Death, the gray mocker, Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers. Under the summer roses When the flagrant crimson Lurks in the dusk Of the wild red leaves, Love, with little hands, Comes and touches you With a thousand memories, And asks you Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
Authorship:
- by Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967), "Under the harvest moon", appears in Chicago Poems, first published 1916
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]6. Child moon  [sung text checked 1 time]
The child’s wonder At the old moon Comes back nightly. She points her finger To the far silent yellow thing Shining through the branches Filtering on the leaves a golden sand, Crying with her little tongue, “See the moon!” And in her bed fading to sleep With babblings of the moon on her little mouth.
Authorship:
- by Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)
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Researcher for this page: David Sims [Guest Editor]7. Between two hills  [sung text checked 1 time]
Between two hills The old town stands. The houses loom And the roofs and trees And the dusk and the dark, The damp and the dew Are there. The prayers are said And the people rest For sleep is there And the touch of dreams Is over all.
Authorship:
- by Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967), appears in Chicago Poems, first published 1916
See other settings of this text.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]