This is just to say

Song Cycle by Robin Holloway (b. 1943)

1. Winter

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2. The bare tree

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3. Spring storm  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
The sky has given over
its bitterness.
Out of the dark change
all day long
rain falls and falls
as if it would never end.
Still the snow keeps
its hold on the ground.
But water, water
from a thousand runnels!
It collects swiftly,
dappled with black
cuts a way for itself
through green ice in the gutters.
Drop after drop it falls
from the withered grass-stems
of the overhanging embankment.

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4. Memory of April  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
You say love is this, love is that:
Poplar tassels, willow tendrils
the wind and the rain comb,
tinkle and drip, tinkle and drip --
branches drifting apart. Hagh!
Love has not even visited this country.

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5. Love song  [sung text not yet checked]

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I lie here thinking of you: --

the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branched the lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world-

you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!

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6. This is just to say  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
I have eaten
 [ ... ]

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7. Perfection

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8. The wildflower

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9. My days are burning

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  • by William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963), "The counter", from The Collected Later Poems, first published 1963, copyright ©

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10. A flowing river

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11. Approach of winter  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
The half-stripped trees
struck by a wind together,
bending all,
the leaves flutter drily
and refuse to let go
or driven like hail
stream bitterly out to one side
and fall
where the salvias, hard carmine --
like no leaf that ever was --
edge the bare garden.

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12. Conquest (Begun)  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Hard, chilly colors:
straw grey, frost grey
the grey of frozen ground:
and you, O sun,
close above the horizon!
It is I holds you --
half against the sky
half against a black tree trunk
icily resplendent!

Lie there, blue city, mine at last --
rimming the banked blue grey
and rise, indescribable smoky yellow
into the overpowering white!

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13. The marriage of souls

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  • by William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963), "The marriage of souls", from The Collected Later Poems, first published 1963, copyright ©

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14. Conquest (Concluded)  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Hard, chilly colors:
straw grey, frost grey
the grey of frozen ground:
and you, O sun,
close above the horizon!
It is I holds you --
half against the sky
half against a black tree trunk
icily resplendent!

Lie there, blue city, mine at last --
rimming the banked blue grey
and rise, indescribable smoky yellow
into the overpowering white!

Text Authorship:

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 368