"ECHO AND MIRAGE"
Here is the second of the three songs
to poems by Christina Rossetti;
as recorded by Nancy King, soprano,
with the composer at the piano.
Below are the poems and the complete score to all three songs:
|
I Come to me in the silence of the night; Come in the speaking silence of a dream; Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright As sunlight on a stream; Come back in tears, O memory, hope, love of finished years. O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet, Whose wakening should have been in Paradise, Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet; Where thirsting longing eyes Watch the slow door That opening, letting in, lets out no more. II Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live My very life again though cold in death: The hope I dreamed of was a dream, Was but a dream; and now I wake, Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old, For a dream's sake. I hang my harp upon a tree, A weeping willow in a lake; I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped For a dream's sake. Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart; My silent heart, lie still and break: Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dream's sake.” |
III. Come back to me in dreams, that I may give Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: Speak low, lean low As long ago, my love, how long ago. |