Satires of Circumstance

Song Cycle by Seymour J. Shifrin (b. 1926)

?. Waiting both  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
A star looks down at me,
And says: "Here I and you
Stand, each in our degree:
What do you mean to do, -
  Mean to do?"

I say: "For all I know,
Wait, and let Time go by,
Till my change come." - "Just so,"
The star says: "So mean I: -
  So mean I."

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First published in London Mercury November 1924

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. What's there to tell?  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
What's there to tell of the world
  More than is told?
-- Into its vortex hurled,
  Out of it rolled,
Can we yet more of the world
  Find to be told?
    Lalla-la, lu!

If some could last alive
  Much might be told;
Yes, gladness might survive;
  But they go cold --
Each and each late alive --
  All their tale told.
    Lalla-la, lu!

There's little more of the world,
  Then, to be told;
Had ever life unfurled
  Joys manifold,
There had been more of the world
  Left to be told.
    Lalla-la, lalla-la, lalla-la, lu!

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Confirmed with The Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy, Wordsworth Editions, 1994, pages 735-736.


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. The Convergence of the Twain  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
I
     In a solitude of the sea
     Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II
     Steel chambers, late the pyres
     Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III
     Over the mirrors meant
     To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls -- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV
     Jewels in joy designed
     To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V
     Dim moon-eyed fishes near
     Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?". . .

VI
     Well: while was fashioning
     This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII
     Prepared a sinister mate
     For her -- so gaily great -- 
A Shape of Ice, for the time [far]1 and dissociate.

VIII
     And as the smart ship grew
     In stature, grace, and hue
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX
     Alien they seemed to be:
     No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history.

X
     Or sign that they were bent
     By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

XI
     Till the Spinner of the Years
     Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

Text Authorship:

  • by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "The Convergence of the Twain", subtitle: "Lines on the loss of the Titanic"

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First published in Fortnightly Review, June, 1912
1 sometimes misprinted as "fat".


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Total word count: 357