Long, too long America, Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only, But now, ah now, to learn from [crises]1 of anguish, [ advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not, And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are, (For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?) ]2
A Free Song
Cantata by William Howard Schuman (1910 - 1992)
Word count: 86
1. Long, too long America
Note: this is a multi-text setting
Authorship
- by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), "Long, too long America", appears in Drum Taps [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
1 Schuman: "cries"
2 omitted by Schuman.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Look down, fair moon and bathe this scene, Pour softly down night's nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple; On the dead, on their backs, with [their]1 arms toss'd wide, Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon.
Authorship
- by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), "Look down, fair moon", appears in Drum Taps [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
See other settings of this text.
View original text (without footnotes)1 omitted by Rands.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
2. Song of the banner  [sung text checked 1 time]
O, a new song, a free song, Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer, By the wind's voice, By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice, and father's voice, Low on the ground and high in the air, Where the banner at daybreak is flapping. We hear and see not strips of cloth alone; We hear again the tramp of armies, We hear the drums beat, and the trumpets blowing, We hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, We hear liberty.
The text shown is a variant of another text.
It is based on
- a text in English by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), "Song of the Banner at Daybreak", appears in Drum Taps
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]