Coffin that passes through lanes and streets (Whitman, set by P. Hindemith, R. Sessions) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in black,
With the show of the States themselves as of crepe-veil'd women standing,
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
[With the countless torches lit,]¹ with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn,
[With all the mournful voices of the dirges]¹ pour'd around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs -- where amid these you journey,
[With]² the tolling bells' perpetual clang,
Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you a sprig of lilac.

View text without footnotes
¹ omitted by Sessions
² Sessions: "and"

Input by Ahmed E. Ismail

Authorship

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Memories of President Lincoln

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

[ None yet in the database ]

Text is used as part of a longer work

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd

full setting text

Roger Sessions (1896-1985)

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd

full setting text

Date added to the website: 2005-01-13.

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