Three Emily Dickinson Songs

Song Cycle by Martin Butler (b. 1960)

1. The summer lapsed away  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
As imperceptibly as grief
The Summer lapsed away --
Too imperceptible, at last,
To seem like Perfidy -- 

A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon --

The Dusk drew earlier in --
The morning foreign shone --
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, [that]1 would be gone --

And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.

Text Authorship:

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

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1 Bacon: "who"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. There came a wind  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
There came a wind like a bugle,
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass

We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost
The doom's electric moccasin
That very instant passed.

On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
The living looked that day,

The bell within the steeple wild,
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come and much can go,
And yet abide the world!

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "Vingué un vent com un clarí", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Alors vint un vent comme un clairon", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. To make a prairie  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, -
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 185