"Will There Really Be a Morning" is one of six songs from "WIDER THAN THE SKY," a collection of Art Songs that sets the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Soprano Heather Whitney performs the song, with the composer at the piano.
Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like water-lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?
Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!
Oh, some wise man from the skies!
Please to tell a little pilgrim
where the place called morning lies.
It is delightful how wonder and humor balance in this mid-19th century poem. Dickinson wryly observes: “So impotent is OUR wisdom to Her(nature’s) simplicity.” This is the era of Darwin, of species classification, and of great scientific speculation and great scientific endeavors. Her humorous nod to the fact that all our efforts to explain the substance of things never really captures the meaning of things is a profound comment on the limits of our ability to describe the simple wonder of the world around us.
“Nature” is what we see- The Hill-the Afternoon- Squirrel-Eclipse-the Bumble bee-
Nay-Nature is Heaven-
Nature is what we hear- The Bobolink-the Sea- Thunder-
the Cricket-
Nay-Nature is Harmony-
Nature is what we know- Yet have no art to say-
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity
"If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking" is one of six songs from "WIDER THAN THE SKY," a collection of Art Songs composed by Kari Cruver Medina, that sets the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Soprano Heather Whitney performs the song, with the composer at the piano.
If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
A powerful and timeless reflection on learned helplessness and the depression that ensues.
I can wade Grief— Whole Pools of it— I'm used to that—
But the least push of Joy Breaks up my feet—
And I tip—drunken— Let no Pebble—smile—
'Twas the New Liquor— That was all!
Power is only Pain— Stranded, thro' Discipline,
Till Weights—will hang—
Give Balm—to Giants—
And they'll wilt, like Men—
Give Himmaleh— They'll Carry—Him!
"It's All I Have to Give Today" is one of six songs from "WIDER THAN THE SKY," a collection of Art Songs composed by Kari Cruver Medina, that sets the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Soprano Heather Whitney performs the song, with the composer at the piano.
It's all I have to bring today—
This, and my heart beside—
This, and my heart, and all the fields—
And all the meadows wide—
Be sure you count—should I forget—
Some one the sum could tell—
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
The friends and family that gathered for Emily Dickinson’s funeral in Amherst on May 15th, 1886, had no idea that the woman they mourned was one of the greatest lyric poets in the English language. To the members of the group that had assembled that day she was a beloved sister, a dynamic, intense friend, or an eccentric neighbor. The mourners knew she had written poetry of some kind. Some may have been aware that a handful of these scribblings had been published anonymously. But none of them had any notion of this woman’s genius, nor the abiding significance of the work that lay hidden away upstairs in a box in Emily’s room. When her sister, Lavinia opened the drawer she found hundreds upon hundreds of poems bundled together with string. They gathered up nearly eighteen hundred in all.
No other person in American history has become so famous in death after having been so anonymous in life. Emily’s poem “Fame is a Bee” is a profoundly prescient tribute to that irony.
Fame is a Bee—
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing.
In the case of Emily Dickinson, her voice did indeed have “a wing.” It didn’t soar into oblivion; it winged itself across the centuries and around the world...
"Kookoorookoo" is from the series "MY HEART, A SINGING BIRD," a collection of Art Songs that sets the poetry of Christina Rossetti. Soprano Heather Whitney performs the song, with the composer at the piano.
Kookoorookoo! Kookoorookoo!
Crows the cock before the morn;
Kikirikee! Kikirikee!
Roses in the east are born
Kookoorookoo! Kookoorookoo!
Early birds begin their singing;
Kikirikee! Kikirikee!
The day, the day, the day is springing.
"Clouds" is from the series "MY HEART, A SINGING BIRD," a collection of Art Songs composed by Kari Cruver Medina, that sets the poetry of Christina Rossetti. Soprano Heather Whitney performs the song, with the composer at the piano.
English writer Christina Rossetti (1830 -1894) grew up surrounded by a family passionate about language, literature, arts and ideas. This lovely poem about watching clouds is from her poetry for children.
White sheep, white sheep,
On a blue hill,
When the wind stops
You all stand still.
When the wind blows
You walk away slow.
White sheep, white sheep,
Where do you go?
On first reading, “Who has Seen the Wind” seems so simple-- but the power in good poetry is it’s ability to speak to multiple levels. Though a kind of “wondering” poem included in her children’s poems, the work also serves as a “wondering” poem for adults. On the surface it is a sweet observation about nature; dig deeper, and it reflects the author’s spiritual and theological musings. Touching on the invisibility of faith, it borrows from Christ’s words to Nicodemus in the book of Matthew when he is describing the Holy Spirit “the wind blows where it wishes…you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from or where it is going…”
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
English writer Christina Rossetti (1830 -1894) grew up surrounded by a family passionate about language, literature, arts and ideas.
Her poetry often reflects on the ephemeral nature of life and even her simplest poems resonate with an undercurrent of profound depth. Initially, “Windflowers” depicts the carefree joy of gathering and braiding crowns of summer blossoms. It can be read as a glorious tribute to the beauty, innocence, and imagination of childhood. But there is a profound shift as the verse moves into the final stanza. We realize this work is really about the fleeting nature of life itself.
Twist me a crown of wind-flowers;
That I may fly away
To hear the singers at their song,
And players at their play.
Put on your crown of wind-flowers:
But whither would you go?
Beyond the surging of the sea
And the storms that blow.
Alas! your crown of wind-flowers
Can never make you fly:
I twist them in a crown to-day,
And to-night they die.
A deeply haunting lyrical love poem, this work is both passionate and heartbreaking. As implied by the title, the poem echoes with memories of lost love. The language is full of feeling, and the piece is intentional in its lush chromatic romanticism. Aside from the title, there is no mention of the term “echo” anywhere in the text, but the role of the echoing voice is embodied in the many repetitions of words and phrases paired with subtle echo motifs throughout. This is a work weighted in loss, but not entirely despairing. Though bittersweet, it carries within it a deep sense of gratitude for all that was and could have been.
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.
Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door that opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again tho’ cold in death:
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.
The language of “A Birthday” is lush, infused with sumptuous and evocative imagery of Britain’s Pre-Raphaelite Movement. (Christina’s brother, painter and poet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, founded this mid-19th century arts collective, and she was both an early literary contributor as well as a model for some of her brother’s most renowned paintings.) The poem is a breathless, passionate, and unabashed celebration of young love. This intoxicating feeling of adrenaline and excitement is expressed in the light arpeggiated movement in the piano, with trilling figures that mimic both birdsong and the fluttering of the heart. The corresponding vocal melody is soaring and light-hearted, full of anticipation. This is a song of pure effervescence and joy.
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life Is come,
My love is come to me.
Christina Rossetti wrote this poem as a teenager. One of her most beloved, it resonates with a tongue-in-cheek stoicism she exhibited her whole life, even midst the family drama that seemed to continually encircle her unconventional brother, artist Dante Rosssetti. As a person with deeply held spiritual convictions she later reiterated: “May I DESERVE remembrance when my day comes and then remembered or forgotten it will be well with me.”
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows
I shall not feel the rain
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise or set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.