Nature, the gentlest mother

Nature, the gentlest mother
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest, -
Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon, -
Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky,

With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.

by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) , no title, from Poems by Emily Dickinson, published 1891

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

by Ernst Bacon (1898-1990) , "The gentlest mother", published 1971 [soprano and alto soli, SSA chorus, and piano], from Nature, no. ?
by Aaron Copland (1900-1990) , "Nature, the gentlest mother", 1949-50 [mezzo-soprano, piano], from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, no. 1.

FRE French (Guy Laffaille)

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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