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The Other Side of Silence

Song Cycle by Libby Larsen (b. 1950)

1. In Medias Res
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Men can do nothing, without the make-believe of a beginning...
Even science....is obliged to start with a make-believe unit...
And must fix on a point in the stars’ unceasing journey....
And pretend that time is Nought. ...
Since science...reckons backwards as well as forward...
Divides his unit into billions...
and with his finger set at Nought really sets off in medias res.

Text Authorship:

  • by Mary Ann Evans (1819 - 1880), as George Eliot, no title, appears in Daniel Deronda [novel]

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. Harvest and Springtime
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
In the human experience, the humans are all mingled together;
In the same moment the sickle is reaping
And the seed is sprinkled:...
Harvest and springtime,
In each of our lives,
Harvest and springtime
Are continually one.
Harvest and springtime...
Gathers and sows us anew...
Springtime and harvest and springtime.

Text Authorship:

  • by Mary Ann Evans (1819 - 1880), as George Eliot, appears in Daniel Deronda [novel]

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Vanished
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
So much of our early gladness
Vanishes utterly from our memory
We can never recall the joy
With which we laid our heads on our mother’s bosom
Or road on our father’s back in childhood.
Doubtless that joy ...is wrought up into our nature...
But it is gone forever
From our imagination,
And we can only BELIEVE
In the joy of childhood.

Text Authorship:

  • by Mary Ann Evans (1819 - 1880), as George Eliot, appears in Adam Bede [novel]

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. Commonplace
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
We all must die...
Commonplace...
”We all must die”
Suddenly, acute, transformed into consciousness.
“ I must die – and soon.”
Then death grapples us,
And his fingers are cruel;
Afterwards, death may come to fold us in his arms
As our mother did,
And our last moment of dim, earthly discerning
May be like the first.

Text Authorship:

  • by Mary Ann Evans (1819 - 1880), as George Eliot, no title, appears in Middlemarch [novel]

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. True Seeing
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
After all, the true seeing is within.
If we had a keen vision and feeling of ordinary human life.
It would be like hearing the grass grow
And the squirrel’s heart beat,
And we should die of that roar
Which lies on the other side
Of silence.

Text Authorship:

  • by Mary Ann Evans (1819 - 1880), as George Eliot, no title, appears in Middlemarch [novel]

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 277
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