Herstory I

Song Cycle by Elizabeth Walton Vercoe (b. 1941)

1. Noon walk on the asylum lawn  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
The summer sun ray
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

Go to the general single-text view

This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.

2. Her Kind  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
I have gone out, a possessed witch
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.

3. Side by side
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Ho! in the dawn
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

Go to the general single-text view

This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.

4a. For a Child:  The Crib
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
You sleeping I bend to cover
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

Go to the general single-text view

This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.

4b. Morning song
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses.  I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars.  And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

Text Authorship:

  • by Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963), "Morning Song", appears in Ariel, first published 1965

Go to the general single-text view

Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. Mirror
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
I am silver and exact.  I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful --
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink with speckles.  I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart.  But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake.  A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of the hands.

I am important to her.  She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

6. Old
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Death starts like a dream
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

Go to the general single-text view

This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.

7. Sleep
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Lullaby./ Weave my threads to sleep
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

Go to the general single-text view

This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.
Total word count: 708