There's a certain slant of light (Dickinson, set by (Ernst Bacon, Robert F. Baksa, Ronald A. Beckett, Sharon Davis, Peter Dickinson, Daniel Rogers Pinkham, Richard Pearson Thomas)) (The LiederNet Archive: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)

There's a certain slant of light

Language: English

Available translation(s): FRE GER

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'T is the seal, despair, -
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.

About the headline (FAQ)

Authorship

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published 1890 [author's text not yet checked 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 Ernst Bacon (1898 - 1990), "Winter afternoons", published 1971 [SA chorus and piano], from Nature [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
by Robert F. Baksa (b. 1938), "There's a certain slant of light", published 1978 [mezzo-soprano, piano], from Emily Dickinson Songs, no. 12. [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
by Ronald A. Beckett , "Winter: There’s a certain slant of light", 2006 [voice and piano], from The Seasons: Four Poems of Emily Dickinson, no. 1. [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
by Sharon Davis (b. 1937), "There's a certain slant of light", published 1981 [soprano and piano trio], from Three Moods of Emily Dickinson [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
by Peter Dickinson (b. 1934), "There's a certain slant of light", published 1974 [AATTBB chorus and contrabass], from the cantata Winter Afternoons [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
by Daniel Rogers Pinkham (1923 - 2006), "There's a certain slant of light", published 1974 [medium voice and electronic tape], from Safe in their Alabaster Chambers [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
by Richard Pearson Thomas (b. 1957), "There's a certain slant of light", from At last, to be identified, no. 5. [ 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]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 76