Seven Choral Settings of Poems by Emily Dickinson

Song Cycle by Donald Grantham (b. 1947)

?. One need not be a chamber to be haunted [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That cooler host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one's own self encounter
In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror's least.

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O'erlooking a superior spectre
More near.

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems by Emily Dickinson, first published 1891

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. The spider as an artist [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

The Spider as an Artist
Has never been employed -
Though his surpassing Merit
Is freely certified

By every Broom and Bridget
Throughout a Christian Land -
Neglected Son of Genius,
I take thee by the Hand.

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems by Emily Dickinson, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Confirmed with The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. R.W. Franklin, Volume 3, Cambridge, MA and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998, Poem 1373.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. This is my letter to the world [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

This is my letter to the world, 
That never wrote to me, - 
The simple news that nature told, 
With tender magesty. 

Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published 1890

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. Without a smile ‑‑ without a throe [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

Without a smile -- Without a Throe
A Summer's soft Assemblies go
To their entrancing end
Unknown -- for all the times we met --
Estranged, however intimate --
What a dissembling Friend --

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Bolts of Melody, first published 1945

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. For each ecstatic instant [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.

For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems by Emily Dickinson, first published 1891

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. Father, I bring thee not myself [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

Father, I bring thee not myself, --
        That were the little load;
I bring thee the imperial heart
        I had not strength to hold.

The heart I cherished in my own
        Till mine too heavy grew,
Yet strangest, heavier since it went,
        Is it too large for you?

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. A spider sewed at night [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

A spider sewed at night
Without a light
Upon an arc of white.
If ruff it was of dame
Or shroud of Gnome,
Himself, himself inform.
Of immortality
His strategy
Was physiognomy.

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems by Emily Dickinson, first published 1891

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Total word count: 302