Vita Brevis

Song Cycle by Paul Moravec (b. 1957) 

One life: a gleam of time between two eternities.
    --Thomas Carlyle

1. Lullaby  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Sleep, child, lie quiet, let be
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

  • by James Agee (1909 - 1955), "A lullaby", first published 1949?, copyright ©

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2. My heart leaps up  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began; 
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old, 
   Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

Text Authorship:

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Mein Herz hüpft auf", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Note: Quoted by Ogden Nash in Song to be sung by the father of infant female children

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. Mezzo Cammin  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Half of my life is gone, and I have let
   The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
   The aspiration of my youth, to build
   Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
   Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
   But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
   Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
   Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
   A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
   And hear above me on the autumnal blast
   The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.

Text Authorship:

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. The coming of wisdom with time  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.

Text Authorship:

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First published in McClure's Magazine, December 1910, revised same year

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

5. In remembrance
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.
 ...

Text Authorship:

  • by Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905 - 2004), an early version, long regarded as anonymous, reproduced widely

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

  • FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Erkki Pullinen) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 382