for voice (med. high) and piano

• To listen to the composition click on the individual movement below

1. Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower
2. I died for beauty
3. How lonesome the wind must feel nights
4. The saddest noise, the sweetest noise
5. Hope is the thing with feathers
6. Make me a picture of the sun

• To download the piano/vocal score click here

These six poems are the first half dozen of a collaboration between myself and the American poet Emily Dickinson. I first set one of her poems for soprano and piano many years ago. I added a second for a performance during the spring of 1998. The next four were written during a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris during the summer of 1998.

I have always been attracted to the flow of words and thoughts in her poems. I anticipate continuing to set her poetry for many more years, adding to the collection song by song. As she has written almost 2000 poems, I don't fear running out of material very soon.

This set is dedicated to two very talented performers and two very dear friends, Kristi Matson and Brad Blackham, on the occasion of their marriage.

The Texts

Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower

Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower,

But I could never sell – 

If you would like to borrow, 

Until the Daffodil

 

Unties her yellow Bonnet

Beneath the village door,

Until the Bees, from Clover rows

Their Hock, and Sherry, draw,

 

Why, I will lend until just then,

But not an hour more

 

I died for beauty

I died for Beauty – but was scarce

Adjusted in the Tomb

When One who died for Truth, was lain

In an adjoining Room –

 

He questioned softly "Why I failed"?

"For Beauty", I replied –

"And I – for Truth – Themself are one –

We Brethren, are", He said –

 

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night –

We talked between the Rooms –

Until the Moss had reached our lips –

And covered up – our names –

 

How lonesome the wind must feel nights

How lonesome the Wind must feel Nights –

When people have put out the Lights

And everything that has an Inn

Closes the shutter and goes in –

 

How pompous the Wind must feel Noons

Stepping into incorporeal Tunes

Correcting errors of the sky

And clarifying scenery

 

How mighty the Wind must feel Morns

Encamping on a thousand dawns

Espousing each and spurning all

Then soaring to his Temple Tall –

 

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,

The maddest noise that grows, –

The birds, they make it in the spring,

At night's delicious close.

 

Between the March and April line –

That magical frontier

Beyond which summer hesitates,

Almost too heavenly near.

 

It makes us think of all the dead

That sauntered with us here,

By separation's sorcery

Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,

And what we now deplore.

We almost wish those siren throats

Would go and sing no more.

 

An ear can break a human heart

As quickly as a spear,

We wish the ear had not a heart

So dangerously near.

 

Hope is the thing with feathers

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tunes without the words –

And never stops – at all –

 

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

 

I've heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet, never, in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of Me.

 

Make me a picture of the sun

Make me a picture of the sun –

So I can hang it in my room –

And make believe I'm getting warm

When others call it “Day”!

 

Draw me a Robin – on a stem –

So I am hearing him, I'll dream,

And when the Orchards stop their tune –

Put me pretense – away –

 

Say if it's really – warm at noon –

Whether it's Buttercups that “skim” –

Or Butterflies – that “bloom”?

Then – skip – the frost – upon the lea –

And skip the Russet – on the tree –

Let's pray those – never come!