Anybody Better than Nobody. In the barren dusk Even the snake That spirals Terror on the sand -- Better than nobody In this lonely Land.
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Note: Owens moves a period in the first four lines as follows: "Anybody/
Better than/ Nobody/ In the barren dusk."
Text Authorship:
- by Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967), "Desert", appears in Fields of Wonder, in Border Line, no. 15, first published 1947 [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 Robert Owens (1925 - 2017), "Desert", op. 24 no. 15, published 1970 [ baritone and piano ], from Border Line, no. 15 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Günter Raphael (1903 - 1960), "Desert", copyright © 1965 [ baritone, piano, oboe, and percussion ], from My Dark Hands = Mein dunklen Hände, no. 4, also set in German (Deutsch) [sung text not yet checked]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Paridam von dem Knesebeck (c1911 - 2000) , "Wüste", appears in Mein dunklen Hände. Moderne Negerlyrik in Original und Nachdichtung, first published 1953, copyright © and by Eva Hesse (1925 - 2020) , "Wüste", appears in Mein dunklen Hände. Moderne Negerlyrik in Original und Nachdichtung, first published 1953, copyright © ; composed by Günter Raphael.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2009-05-28
Line count: 10
Word count: 24