Three Songs from Blake's "America" (1987)
Three movements; bass-baritone and piano; ca. 11 min
The composer writes: 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.
WATCH & LISTEN ...
Score available from:
TEXTS
I:
Solemn heave the Atlantic waves between the gloomy nations,
Swelling, belching from its deeps red clouds & raging fires.
Albion is sick! America faints! enrag’d the Zenith grew.
As human blood shooting its veins all round the orbed heaven,
Red rose the clouds from the Atlantic in vast wheels of blood,
And in the red clouds rose a Wonder o’er the Atlantic sea,
Intense! naked! a Human fire, fierce glowing as the wedge
Of iron heated in the furnace: his terrible limbs were fire
With myriads of cloudy terrors, banners dark & towers
Surrounded: heat but not light went thro’ the murky atmosphere.
The King of England looking westward trembles at the vision.
II:
“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 rear’d 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.
III:
The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations;
The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up;
The bones of death, the cov’ring clay, the sinews shrunk & dry’d
Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing, awakening,
Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds & bars are burst.
Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field,
Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air;
Let the inchained soul, shut up in darkness and in sighing,
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years,
Rise and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open;
And let his wife and children return from the oppressor’s scourge.
They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream,
Singing: “The Sun has left his blackness & has found a fresher morning,
And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night;
For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease.”
The composer writes: 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.
WATCH & LISTEN ...
Score available from:
TEXTS
I:
Solemn heave the Atlantic waves between the gloomy nations,
Swelling, belching from its deeps red clouds & raging fires.
Albion is sick! America faints! enrag’d the Zenith grew.
As human blood shooting its veins all round the orbed heaven,
Red rose the clouds from the Atlantic in vast wheels of blood,
And in the red clouds rose a Wonder o’er the Atlantic sea,
Intense! naked! a Human fire, fierce glowing as the wedge
Of iron heated in the furnace: his terrible limbs were fire
With myriads of cloudy terrors, banners dark & towers
Surrounded: heat but not light went thro’ the murky atmosphere.
The King of England looking westward trembles at the vision.
II:
“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 rear’d 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.
III:
The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations;
The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up;
The bones of death, the cov’ring clay, the sinews shrunk & dry’d
Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing, awakening,
Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds & bars are burst.
Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field,
Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air;
Let the inchained soul, shut up in darkness and in sighing,
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years,
Rise and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open;
And let his wife and children return from the oppressor’s scourge.
They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream,
Singing: “The Sun has left his blackness & has found a fresher morning,
And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night;
For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease.”
