Two Poems by Edgar Allan Poe (2013)
Tenor, horn, piano; 5 min. ca.
The composer writes: It’s hard to imagine a more romantic writer than Edgar Allan Poe. The nineteenth-century American poet and short-story author gave free reign to his vivid imagination’s fascination with suffering, morbidity, alienation, the occult, the cosmos, and other Gothic themes. The two poems paired together in this set are excellent examples of his literary proclivities. Yet while “Alone” is consistently dark and gloomy, “Evening Star” admits a ray of hope.
TEXTS
I: Alone
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then, in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life, was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still.
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder, and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
II: Evening Star (fragment)
‘Twas noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro’ the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold, too cold for me.
There pass'd, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee.
Proud Ev’ning Star,
In thy glory far,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.
The composer writes: It’s hard to imagine a more romantic writer than Edgar Allan Poe. The nineteenth-century American poet and short-story author gave free reign to his vivid imagination’s fascination with suffering, morbidity, alienation, the occult, the cosmos, and other Gothic themes. The two poems paired together in this set are excellent examples of his literary proclivities. Yet while “Alone” is consistently dark and gloomy, “Evening Star” admits a ray of hope.
TEXTS
I: Alone
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then, in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life, was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still.
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder, and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
II: Evening Star (fragment)
‘Twas noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro’ the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold, too cold for me.
There pass'd, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee.
Proud Ev’ning Star,
In thy glory far,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.
