Yet each [I]1 keep and all, retrievements out of the night;
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe,
With the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering odor;
[With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird,]2
Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever [I]1 keep 
  for the dead I loved so well;
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands -- 
  and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim.3

R. Sessions sets lines 1, 9, 11-12

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Hindemith: "to"
² omitted by Hindemith
³ Hindemith adds: "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd." (a line from earlier in the long poem)

Text Authorship:

• by Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), no title, appears in Memories of President Lincoln, in When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, no. 20 [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 John Hawkins (b. 1944), "Lilac star bird", published 1967 [ soprano (bamboo chimes and maracas), violin, cello, vibraphone, and celesta (sand blocks) ], from Three Cavatinas, no. 1, Don Mills, Ontario, BMI Canada [sung text not yet checked]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:

• by Roger Sessions (1896 - 1985), no title, from cantata When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, no. 3, cantata
  • View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
    
• by Paul Hindemith (1895 - 1963), no title [ baritone, mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra ], from cantata When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, no. 11
  • View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
    

Researcher for this page: Ahmed E. Ismail

This text was added to the website: 2005-01-13
Line count: 12
Word count: 124