Vincent Persichetti: Emily Dickinson Songs (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like water-lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?

Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!
Oh, some wise man from the skies!
Please to tell a little pilgrim
Where the place called morning lies!

2. I'm nobody

Language: English

Authorship

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Poems by Emily Dickinson

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Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

GER

German

ITA

Italian


I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd [banish us]¹, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell [your]² name the livelong [day]³
To an admiring bog!

View text without footnotes
¹ G. Coates: "advertise"
² G. Coates: "one's
³ G. Coates: "June"

3. When the hills do

Language: English

Authorship

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Poems of Emily Dickinson

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Alter? When the hills do.
Falter? When the sun
Question if his glory
Be the perfect one.

Surfeit? When the daffodil
Doth of the dew:
Even as herself, O friend!
I will of you!

4. The grass

Language: English

Authorship

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Poems of Emily Dickinson

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The grass so little has to do, -
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,

And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;

And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine, -
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.

And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine,
As lowly spices gone to sleep,
Or amulets of pine.

And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
And dream the days away, -
The grass so little has to do,
I wish I were the hay!