Climbing: 7 Songs on 8 Poems by African-Americans

Song Cycle by Tom Cipullo (b. 1960)

1. On Being Brought From Africa to America
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

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2. Ice Storm
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Unable to sleep, or pray, I stand
 [ ... ]

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3. Yet Do I Marvel
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

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4. Incident
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

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5. Personal
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
In an envelope marked:
PERSONAL
God addressed me a letter.
In an envelope marked:
PERSONAL
I have given my answer.

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6. The Point
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Land’s end. And sound and river come
 [ ... ]

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7. Dawn
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
An angel, robed in spotless white,
Bent down and kissed the sleeping Night.
Night woke to blush; the sprite was gone.
Men saw the blush and called it Dawn.

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Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Garrett Medlock [Guest Editor]
Total word count: 411