LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (21,119)
  • Text Authors (21,231)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,135)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Mary O'Neill (1905 - 1990)

Orange is a tiger lily
Language: English 
Chosen for Diff
Orange is a tiger lily,
A carrot,
A feather from
A parrot,
A flame,
The wildest color
You can name.
Orange is a happy day
Saying good-by
In a sunset that
Shocks the sky.
Orange is brave
Orange is bold
It’s bittersweet
And marigold.
Orange is zip
Orange is dash
The brightest stripe
In a Roman sash.
Orange is an orange
Also a mango
Orange is music
Of the tango.
Orange is the fur
Of the fiery fox,
The brightest crayon
In the box.
And in the fall
When the leaves are turning
Orange is the smell
Of a bonfire burning…

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by Mary O'Neill (1905 - 1990), "What is Orange?", appears in Hailstones and Halibut Bones, first published 1961 [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 Ruth Watson Henderson (1932 - 2026), "Orange", published 2002, copyright © 2000 [ sa chorus and piano ], from Adventures in Color, Earthsongs
        Publisher: Earthsongs [external link]  [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2026-09-05
Line count: 31
Word count: 101

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2026 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris