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Song Cycle by Lewis Spratlan (b. 1940)

?. Prologue  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the line of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows-
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Frost (1874 - 1963), appears in Mountain Interval, first published 1916

See other settings of this text.

Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada and the U.S., 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]

?. Morning star  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
It's a strange courage
you give me ancient star:

Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!

Text Authorship:

  • by William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963), "El hombre", appears in Al Que Quiero!, first published 1917

Go to the general single-text view

Note: quoted by Wallace Stevens in Nuances of a theme by Williams

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. Moth  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Just now,
Out of the strange
Still dusk . . . as strange, as still . . .
A white moth flew . . . Why am I grown
So cold?

Text Authorship:

  • by Adelaide Crapsey (1878 - 1914), "The warning", appears in Verse, first published 1915

See other settings of this text.

Note: Bottelier's setting begins with the title "The warning"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
stinging
gold swarms
upon the spires
silver

           chants the litanies the
great bells are ringing with rose
the lewd fat bells
                            and a tall

wind
is dragging
the
sea

with

dream

-S

Text Authorship:

  • by E. E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings (1894 - 1962), no title, appears in Tulips and Chimneys, in 1. Tulips, in 6. Impressions, first published 1923

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. November night  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Listen.	
With faint dry sound,	
Like steps of passing ghosts,	
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees	
And fall.

Text Authorship:

  • by Adelaide Crapsey (1878 - 1914), "November night", appears in Verse, first published 1915

See other settings of this text.

Note: Bottelier's setting begins with the title "November night" sung twice.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. Iris

Language: English 
— This text is not currently
in the database but will be added
as soon as we obtain it. —

Text Authorship:

  • by William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963), "Iris", appears in Pictures from Brueghel, first published 1962, copyright ©

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

?. Chameleon

Language: English 
— This text is not currently
in the database but will be added
as soon as we obtain it. —

Text Authorship:

  • by Marianne Moore (1887 - 1972), "To a chameleon", appears in O to be a Dragon, first published 1959, copyright ©

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.
Total word count: 612
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This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

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