by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)
The sound of the sea
Language: English
The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, And round the pebbly beaches far and wide I heard the first wave of the rising tide Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep; A voice out of the silence of the deep, A sound mysteriously multiplied As of a cataract from the mountain's side, Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep. So comes to us at times, from the unknown And inaccessible solitudes of being, The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul; And inspirations, that we deem our own, Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing Of things beyond our reason or control.
Text Authorship:
- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), "The sound of the sea", appears in Masque of Pandora and Other Poems, first published 1875 [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 Louis Adolphe Coerne (1870 - 1922), "The sound of the sea", op. 28 (Ten Songs) no. 4, published 1894 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by John C. Heiss (b. 1938), "The sound of the sea", published 1978 [ mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, violoncello, piano ], from Songs of Nature [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2008-06-23
Line count: 14
Word count: 102