by Stephen Crane (1871 - 1900)
There was a man with tongue of wood
Language: English
There was a man with tongue of wood Who essayed to sing, And in truth it was lamentable. But there was one who heard The clip-clapper of this tongue of wood And knew what the man Wished to sing, And with that the singer was content.
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Text Authorship:
- by Stephen Crane (1871 - 1900), no title, appears in War Is Kind and Other Lines, no. 16, first published 1899 [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 N. Barrett-Thomas , "Tongue of wood", published 1970 [ alto and piano ], from Songs of Singing [sung text not yet checked]
- by Jack Arthur Boyd (b. 1932), "A tongue of wood", published 1968 [ soprano and SATB chorus a cappella ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961), "There was a man with tongue of wood", op. 21 no. 6 (1987) [ baritone and piano ], from Final Songs, no. 6 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by David Sisco , "There was a man with a tongue of wood", 1999 [ baritone and piano ], from Five Stephen Crane Poems, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Paul Zonn (b. 1938), "There was a man with tongue", 1967 [ unaccompanied contralto ], from 3 Folk Songs of Stephen Crane [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2004-02-09
Line count: 8
Word count: 46