The line-gang (Frost, set by E. Carter) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Here come the line-gang pioneering by.
They throw a forest down less cut than broken.
They plant dead trees for living, and the dead
They string together with a living thread.
They string an instrument against the sky.
Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken
will run as hushed as when they were a thought.
But in no hush they string it: they go past
With shouts afar to pull the cable taut,
To hold it hard until they make it fast,
To ease away they have it. With a laugh,
An oath of towns that set the wild at naught
They bring the telephone and telegraph.

Authorship

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Mountain Interval

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

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (1908-)

Three Poems of Robert Frost

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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