Verses from the Rubáiyát

Song Cycle by Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927)

1.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling.
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly -- and lo, the Bird is on the wing!

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Researcher for this page: Barbara Miller

2.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse -- and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness --
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

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Researcher for this page: Ferdinando Albeggiani

3.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by that same door as in I went.

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Researcher for this page: Barbara Miller

4.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own Hand [wrought to make it]1 grow,
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd --
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

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1 first edition: "labour'd it to"

Researcher for this page: Barbara Miller

5.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE;
There seem'd -- and then no more of THEE, and ME.

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 169