Three Songs from Blake's "America" (1987)
II: Drammatico (2:29)
Brian McIntosh, bass-baritone; and John Hess, piano
The texts for these three songs are excerpted from William Blake's poem of 1793, America: a Prophesy. This epic work is a commentary on the American Revolution – although not in any literal or conventional sense. Here, Blake creates a visionary world in which allegorical forces representing liberty and tyranny battle for supremacy in the New World. This performance was recorded live at the Wolf Performance Hall, in London, Ontario, on December 10, 2006.
© Colin Eatock 1987
Text
“Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets, & alarm my Thirteen Angels!
“Loud howls the eternal Wolf! the eternal Lion lashes his tail!
“America is darken’d and my punishing demons terrified,
“Crouch howling before their caverns deep, like skins dry’d in the wind.
“They cannot smite the wheat, nor quench the fatness of the earth;
“They cannot smite with sorrows nor subdue the plough and spade;
“They cannot wall the city, nor moat round the castle of princes;
“They cannot bring the stubbed oak to overgrow the hills;
“Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets, & alarm my Thirteen Angels!
“Loud howls the eternal Wolf! the eternal Lion lashes his tail!
“For terrible men stand on the shores, & in their robes I see
“Children take shelter from the lightnings: there stands Washington
“And Paine and Warren with their foreheads reard toward the east.
“Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets, & alarm my Thirteen Angels!
“Loud howls the eternal Wolf! the eternal Lion lashes his tail!”
Thus wept the Angel voice, & as he wept, the terrible blasts
Of trumpets blew a loud alarm across the Atlantic deep.
Brian McIntosh, bass-baritone; and John Hess, piano
The texts for these three songs are excerpted from William Blake's poem of 1793, America: a Prophesy. This epic work is a commentary on the American Revolution – although not in any literal or conventional sense. Here, Blake creates a visionary world in which allegorical forces representing liberty and tyranny battle for supremacy in the New World. This performance was recorded live at the Wolf Performance Hall, in London, Ontario, on December 10, 2006.
© Colin Eatock 1987
Text
“Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets, & alarm my Thirteen Angels!
“Loud howls the eternal Wolf! the eternal Lion lashes his tail!
“America is darken’d and my punishing demons terrified,
“Crouch howling before their caverns deep, like skins dry’d in the wind.
“They cannot smite the wheat, nor quench the fatness of the earth;
“They cannot smite with sorrows nor subdue the plough and spade;
“They cannot wall the city, nor moat round the castle of princes;
“They cannot bring the stubbed oak to overgrow the hills;
“Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets, & alarm my Thirteen Angels!
“Loud howls the eternal Wolf! the eternal Lion lashes his tail!
“For terrible men stand on the shores, & in their robes I see
“Children take shelter from the lightnings: there stands Washington
“And Paine and Warren with their foreheads reard toward the east.
“Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets, & alarm my Thirteen Angels!
“Loud howls the eternal Wolf! the eternal Lion lashes his tail!”
Thus wept the Angel voice, & as he wept, the terrible blasts
Of trumpets blew a loud alarm across the Atlantic deep.