by Edgar Lee Masters (1868 - 1950)
Petit the Poet
Language: English
Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel -- Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens -- But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof. Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus, Ballades by the score with the same old thought: The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished; And what is love but a rose that fades? Life all around me here in the village: Tragedy, comedy, valor and truth, Courage, constancy, heroism, failure -- All in the loom, and oh what patterns! Woodlands, meadows, streams and rivers -- Blind to all of it all my life long. Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus, Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, what little iambics, While Homer and Whitman roared in the pines?
Text Authorship:
- by Edgar Lee Masters (1868 - 1950), "Petit the Poet", appears in Spoon River Anthology, first published 1916 [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 Gino Negri (b. 1919), "Petit the Poet", published 1948 [ soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone, and bass solo voices, SATB chorus, and orchestra ], from Antologia di Spoon River [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2008-09-26
Line count: 18
Word count: 127