Look down, fair moon and bathe this scene,
Pour softly down night's nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple;
On the dead, on their backs, with [their]1 arms toss'd wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon.

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Drum-Taps, ed. by Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price, The Walt Whitman Archive

¹ omitted by Rands.

Text Authorship:

• by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), "Look down, fair moon", appears in Drum Taps, first published 1965 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Vivian Fine (1913 - 2000), "Look down, fair moon", 1986, first performed 1987 [ vocal duet with piano ], from Inscriptions, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Vivian Fine (1913 - 2000), "Look down, fair moon", 1991, first performed 1991 [ soprano, piano, violin, oboe, bassoon, and percussion ], from Songs of Love and War, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Daron Aric Hagen (b. 1961), "Look down, fair moon", from Echo's songs, no. 10 [sung text not yet checked]
• by James R. Hanna (b. 1922), "Look down, fair moon", published 1962 [ low voice and piano ], from War [sung text not yet checked]
• by John M. Klein (b. 1915), "Look down, fair moon", published 1949 [ SATB chorus, piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Klaus Miehling (b. 1963), "Look down, fair moon", op. 294 no. 3 (2019) [ voice and piano ], from Sieben Lieder nach Walt Whitman, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Henry Mollicone (b. 1946), "Look down, fair moon" [ soprano, piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Charles Naginski (1909 - 1940), "Look down, fair moon", published 1942 [ medium voice, piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Bernard Rands (b. 1934), "Look down, fair moon and bathe this scene", published 1980, first performed 1981 [ soprano and orchestra ], from Canti lunatici, no. 9, London : Universal Edition [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Ned Rorem (1923 - 2022), "Look down, fair moon", from 5 Songs to Poems - Texts by Walt Whitman, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Ned Rorem (1923 - 2022), "Look down, fair moon", from Five Poems of Walt Whitman, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Harry Somers (b. 1925), "Look down fair moon", from 3 Songs to words by Walt Whitman, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Jeffrey Van (b. 1941), "Look down, fair moon " [ SATB chorus and guitar ], from A Procession Winding Around Me, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Joelle Wallach (b. 1946), "Look down, fair moon", published 1976 [ SSSSAAAATTBBB chorus a cappella ] [sung text checked 1 time]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:

• by William Howard Schuman (1910 - 1992), "Long, too long America", published 1943 [ mixed chorus and 2 pianos or orchestra ], from cantata A Free Song, no. 1, cantata
  • View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
    

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 4
Word count: 37