by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)
Night Thought 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: 105