Going to Heaven! (Dickinson, set by A. Copland) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Going to Heaven!
I don't know when,
Pray do not ask me how, -
Indeed I'm too astonished
To think of answering you!
Going to Heaven! -
How dim it sounds!
And yet it will be done
As sure as flocks go home at night
Unto the shepherd's arm!

Perhaps you're going too!
Who knows?
If you should get there first
Save just a little place for me
Close to the two I lost!
The smallest "robe" will fit me,
And just a bit of "crown";
For you know we do not mind our dress
When we are going home. 

[Going to Heaven!]¹
I'm glad I don't believe it
For it would stop my breath,
And I'd like to look a little more
At such a curious earth!
I am glad they did believe it
Whom I have never found
Since the mighty autumn afternoon
I left them in the ground.

View text without footnotes
¹ added by Copland.

Authorship

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Poems by Emily Dickinson

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

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson

Available translations (or transliterations, if applicable):

FRE

French

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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