The Thing With Feathers (2000)


Performance:  Carol Lundergan, mezzo-soprano; Ed Lundergan, tenor; James Fitzwilliam, piano

Notes:  Set of four songs for mezzo soprano, tenor and piano.  Poems by Emily Dickinson (used with permission).



Hope Is The Thing With Feathers

HopeIsTheThingWithFeathers.mp3 
2:15

 

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune 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.           

 


The Soul Selects Her Own Society

TheSoulSelectsHerOwnSociety.mp3  3:27

 

The soul selects her own society

Then shuts the door

On her divine majority

Obtrude no more.

Unmoved

She notes the chariot’s pausing

At her low gate

Unmoved

An emperor is kneeling

Upon her mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation    

Choose one

Then close the valves of her attention

Like stone.

 


A Word Is Dead

AWordIsDead.mp3  0:47

 

A word is dead

When it is said

Some say.

I say it

just begins to live

that day.

 


I’m Nobody! Who are You?

ImNobody.mp3  2:02

 

I’m nobody! Who are You?

Are You Nobody, too?

Then there’s a pair of us -

Don’t tell! They’d banish us, you know!

 

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

 

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