Futility (Owen, set by B. Rands, J. Rico, J. Cousins, H. Myers, H. Weisgall, B. Britten) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning, and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know. 

Think how it wakes the seed -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break [earth's]¹ sleep at all?

View text without footnotes
First published in Nation, 1918
¹ Rands: "the earth's"

Authorship

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

John E. Cousins

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

H. Emerson Myers (1910-)

Bernard Rands (1935-)

Canti del sole

Jason Rico (1978-)

Hugo Weisgall (1912-)

Soldier Songs for Baritone

Text is used as part of a longer work

(Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

War Requiem

full setting text

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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