by William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963)
Chicory
Language: English
Lift your flowers on bitter stems chicory! Lift them up Out of the scorched ground! Bear no foliage But give yourself Wholly to that! Strain under them you bitter stems that no beast eats— and scorn greyness! Into the heat with them: cool! luxuriant! Sky-blue! The earth cracks and is shriveled up; the wind moans piteously; the sky goes out if you should fail.
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 Stanley Grill (b. 1953), "Chicory", copyright © 2002 [chorus and viola or violoncello], from vignettes - flowers, no. 6, confirmed with an online score [ sung text verified 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2018-04-11
Line count: 20
Word count: 64