O [what shall I hang on the chamber walls? And]1 what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, To adorn the burial-house of him I love? Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes, With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright, With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air, With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific, In the distance of the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there, With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows, And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys, And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.
O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
Set by Paul Hindemith (1895 - 1963), "O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?" [ baritone, mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra ], from cantata When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, no. 7  [sung text checked 1 time]
Note: this setting is made up of several separate texts.
Authorship:
- by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), no title, appears in Memories of President Lincoln, in When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, no. 11
See other settings of this text.
View original text (without footnotes)1 omitted by Sessions
Researcher for this page: Ahmed E. Ismail
Lo, body and soul -- this land, My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships, The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio's shores and flashing Missouri, And ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd with grass and corn. Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty, The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, The gentle soft-born measureless light, The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon, The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars, Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
Authorship:
- by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), no title, appears in Memories of President Lincoln, in When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, no. 12
See other settings of this text.
Researcher for this page: Ahmed E. Ismail