The whole white world is ours, and the world, purple with rose-bays, bays, bush on bush, group, thicket, hedge and tree, dark islands in a sea of gray-green olive or wild white-olive, cut with the sudden cypress shafts, in clusters, two or three, or with one slender, single cypress-tree. Slid from the hill, as crumbling snow-peaks slide, citron on citron fill the valley, and delight waits till our spirits tire of forest, grove and bush and purple flower of the laurel-tree. Yet not one wearies, joined is each to each in happiness complete with bush and flower: ours is the wind-breath at the hot noon-hour, ours is the bee's soft belly and the blush of the rose-petal, lifted, of the flower.
L. Larsen sets stanzas 1-2
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Text Authorship:
- by Hilda Doolittle (1886 - 1961), from Collected Poems 1912-1944 [author's text not yet checked 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 Libby Larsen (b. 1950), "White World", first performed 1994, stanzas 1-2 [ voice, violoncello, and piano ], from Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2007-12-13
Line count: 25
Word count: 121