Duration: 9:30
Instrumentation: SATB, violin, cello, piano, accordion
Text: Sara Teasdale
I. The Sea Wind
I am a pool in a peaceful place,
I greet the sky face to face,
I know the stars and the stately moon
And the wind that runs with rippling shoon— But why does it always bring to me
The far-off beautiful sound of the sea?
The marsh-grass weaves me a wall of green, But the wind comes whispering in between, In the dead of night when the sky is deep The wind comes waking me out of sleep— Why does it always bring to me
The far-off, terrible call of the sea?
II. Sea Longing
A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand, The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the cold murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall, And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,- Tho’ I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea’s eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
The cold insistence of the tide would roll, Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,- Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
Less than the smaller shell along the shoal,
Less than the seagulls calling to the sea.
Premiere: April 16, 2023 by Dr. Yoojin Muhn and the San Antonio Mastersingers. Commissioned in honor of Dr. John Silantien, Music Director Emeritus.
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