LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,114)
  • Text Authors (19,495)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

Six Songs

Song Cycle by Ernst Bacon (1898 - 1990)

1. The banks of the yellow sea
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
This is the land the sunset washes,
These are the banks of the yellow sea;
Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
These are the western mystery!

Night after night her purple traffic
Strews the landing with opal bales;
Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.

Text Authorship:

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

See other settings of this text.

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]

2. Ancient Christmas Carol
 (Sung text)

Language: English 

He came so still where his mother was
As dew in April that falleth on the grass.

He came all so still where his mother lay
As dew in April that falleth on the hay.

He came all so still to his mother's bower
As dew in April that falleth on the flow'r.

Mother and maiden was never none but she;
well might such a lady Jesus' mother be. 

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Omaha
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Red barns and red heifers spot the green
grass circles around Omaha -- the farmers
haul tanks of cream and wagon loads of cheese.
  
Shale hogbacks across the river at Council
Bluffs -- and shanties hang by an eyelash to
the hill slants back around Omaha.
  
A span of steel ties up the kin of Iowa and
Nebraska across the yellow, big-hoofed Missouri River.
Omaha, the roughneck, feeds armies,
Eats and swears from a dirty face.
Omaha works to get the world a breakfast.

Text Authorship:

  • by Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967), "Omaha", appears in Smoke and Steel, first published 1920

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. No dew upon the grass
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
The Sun kept setting -- setting -- still
No Hue of Afternoon --
Upon the Village I perceived
From House to House 'twas Noon.

The Dusk kept dropping -- dropping -- still
No Dew upon the Grass --
But only on my Forehead stopped --
And wandered in my Face --

My Feet kept drowsing -- drowsing -- still
My fingers were awake --
Yet why so little sound -- Myself
Unto my Seeming -- make?

How well I knew the Light before --
I could not see it now --
'Tis Dying -- I am doing -- but
I'm not afraid to know --

Text Authorship:

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

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. A clear midnight
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
This is thy hour, O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death, and the stars.

Text Authorship:

  • by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), "A clear midnight"

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Portions of this text were used in Idyll by Frederick Delius.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

6. World, take good notice
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
World, take good notice, silver stars fading,
Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching,
Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning,
Scarlet, significant, hands off warning,
Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores.

Text Authorship:

  • by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), "World, take good notice"

See other settings of this text.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 363
Gentle Reminder

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

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris