On a March day (Teasdale, set by John Woods Duke) (The LiederNet Archive: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)

by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)

On a March day

Language: English

Available translation(s): FRE

Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind
  That shakes the naked shadows on the ground,
Making a key-board of the earth to strike
  From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound,

Bear witness for me that I loved my life,
  All things that hurt me and all things that healed,
And that I swore it this day in March,
  Here at the edge of this new-broken field.

You only knew me, tell them I was glad
  For every hour since my hour of birth,
And that I ceased to fear, as once I feared,
  The last complete reunion with the earth.

Confirmed with Sara Teasdale, Dark of The Moon, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1926, page 90.

Authorship

by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933), "On a March Day", appears in Dark of the Moon, in The Flight, first published 1926 [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 John Woods Duke (1899 - 1984), "On a March day", 1947, published 1949 [low voice and piano], Boosey & Hawkes [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Text added to the website: 2011-02-13 00:00:00
Last modified: 2015-10-13 15:41:10
Line count: 12
Word count: 102