Tag: Mixed Voices

With lifted feet, hands still,
I am poised, and down the hill
Dart, with heedful mind;
The air goes by in a wind.

Swifter and yet more swift,
Till the heart with a mighty lift
Makes the lungs laugh, the throat cry:-
‘O bird, see; see, bird, I fly.

*’Is this your joy, so wild?
O bird, then I, though a child,
For a golden moment share
Your feathery life in air!’

Say, heart, is there aught like this
**In a world of bliss?
‘Tis more than skating, bound
Steel-shod to the level ground.

Speed slackens now, I float
Awhile in my airy boat;
Till, when the wheels scarce crawl,
My feet to the treadles fall.

Alas, that the longest hill
Must end in a vale; but still,
Who climbs with toil, wheresoe’er,
Shall find wings waiting there.

Henry Charles Beeching (1859-1919)

* In the original poem, these two lines read:
‘Is this, is this your joy?
O bird, then I, though a boy,

** In the original poem, this line reads:
In a world that is full of bliss?

If you would like to perform this piece, please get in touch via the Contact page. I am happy to send perusal scores if interest is expressed.

For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. 

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
From Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey

If you would like to perform this piece, please get in touch via the Contact page. I am happy to send perusal scores if interest is expressed.