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by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)

Night Thought
 (Sung text for setting by F. Rzewski)
 See original
Language: English 
All night long and every night,
When my mama puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,
As plain as day, before my eye.

Armies and emperors and kings,
All carrying different kinds of things,
And marching in so grand a way,
You never saw the like by day.

So fine a show was never seen
At the great circus on the green;
 ...  every kind of beast and man
Is marching in that caravan.

At first they move a little slow,
But still the faster on they go,
And still beside them close I keep
Until we reach the town of Sleep.

Composition:

    Set to music by Frederic Rzewski (1938 - 2021), "Night Thought", 1999 [ voice and piano ], from The Road: a novel for solo piano, no. 46, note: the score indicates that the pianist is also the vocalist

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), "Young night thought", appears in A Child's Garden of Verses, first published 1885

See other settings of this text.


Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2007-06-14
Line count: 16
Word count: 108

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