Three Cavatinas

Song Cycle by John Hawkins (b. 1944)

1. Lilac star bird  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Yet each [I]1 keep and all, retrievements out of the night;
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe,
With the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering odor;
[With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird,]2
Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever [I]1 keep 
  for the dead I loved so well;
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands -- 
  and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim.3

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1 Hindemith: "to"
2 omitted by Hindemith
3 Hindemith adds: "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd." (a line from earlier in the long poem)

Researcher for this page: Ahmed E. Ismail

2. A star lit or a moon  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is;
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.

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3. Loneliness moans like a fog

Language: English 
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Total word count: 150