The Crickets sang
And set the Sun
And Workmen finished one by one
Their Seam the Day upon.
The low Grass loaded with the Dew
The Twilight stood, as Strangers do
With Hat in Hand, polite and new
To stay as if, or go.
A Vastness, as a Neighbor, came,
A Wisdom, without Face, or Name,
A Peace, as Hemispheres at Home
And so the Night became.
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Ernst Bacon (1898 - 1990), "The crickets sang", published 1971 [ SSA chorus and piano ], from Nature [sung text not yet checked]
- by Gordon Getty (b. 1933), "The crickets sang" [ soprano and piano ], from The White Election - A Song Cycle for soprano and piano on 32 poems of Emily Dickinson, Part 3 : Almost Peace, no. 21 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Juliana Hall (b. 1958), "The Crickets sang", 1987 [ soprano and piano ], from Night Dances - 6 songs for Soprano and Piano, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Brian Holmes (b. 1946), "The crickets sang" [ treble chorus and piano ], from Emily's Day, no. 6 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Leon Kirchner (b. 1919), "1104", 1982 [ soprano and piano ], from The Twilight Stood, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 67
Die Grille sang,
Sonn’untergang,
Wer ’s Tagwerk wohl verrichtet hat,
schloss an ihm Saum und Naht.
Am kurzen Gras hing schwer der Tau,
die Dämm’rung stand, wie Fremde stehn:
Hut in der Hand, abwartend noch -
ob Bleiben oder Gehn.
Und Weite als ein Nachbar kam,
und Weisheit ohn’ Gesicht und Nam’,
und Fried’ als heimgekehrte Welt:
So hat die Nacht sich eingestellt.