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by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

A song of joys
 (Sung text for setting by S. Sargon)
 See original
Language: English 
O to make the most jubilant song!
Full of music -- full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Full of common employments -- full of grain and trees.

O for the voices of animals -- O for the swiftness 
  and balance of fishes!
O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!
O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

O the joy of my spirit -- it is uncaged -- it darts like lightning!
It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,
I will have thousands of globes and all time.

O the engineer's joys! to go with a locomotive!
To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, 
  the laughing locomotive!
To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance.

 ... 

Composition:

    Set to music by Simon Sargon (b. 1938), "A song of joys", 1995, stanzas 1-4 [ baritone, horn, piano ], from A Clear Midnight: Six Songs set to Poems of Walt Whitman for Baritone, Horn, and Piano, no. 1

Text Authorship:

  • by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), "A song of joys"

See other settings of this text.


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2008-07-12
Line count: 177
Word count: 1534

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