PROJECT PRODUCERS: MIMMI FULMER AND LEONE BUYSE RECORDING ENGINEERS: STEVE GOTCHER AND BUZZ KEMPER (AUDIO FOR THE ARTS, MADISON), AL SWANSON (SEATTLE), ANDY BRADLEY () RECORDING PRODUCERS: MICHAEL WEBSTER (MADISON AND HOUSTON), WILLIAM FARLOW AND RIC MERRITT (MADISON), ZART DOMBOURIAN-EBY AND MARTIN AMLIN (SEATTLE) DIGITAL EDITING AND MASTERING: ALLEN CORNEAU, ESSENTIAL SOUND, HOUSTON; STEVE GOTCHER AND BUZZ KEMPER BOOKLET NOTES: LEONE BUYSE AND MIMMI FULMER american vistas THE FOLLOWING WORKS WERE RECORDED AT AUDIO FOR THE ARTS IN MADISON: CORIGLIANO AND COPLAND Mimmi Fulmer, soprano Leone Buyse, flute & alto flute (MAY 22, 2000), GENDEL AND SHAPEY (DECEMBER 19, 2003), BOSCH AND COWELL (DECEMBER 17, 2005), Martin Amlin, piano Scott Gendel, piano Michael Webster, clarinet GABURO (JUNE 21, 2006). AMLIN AND BLAKE WERE RECORDED IN ILLSLEY BALL NORDSTROM RECITAL HALL AT BENAROYA HALL, SEATTLE, ON MAY 5, 2001. STALLMAN WAS RECORDED IN STUDE CONCERT HALL, , HOUSTON, ON FEBRUARY 14, 2006.

PHOTO OF MIMMI FULMER BY JAMES GILL PHOTO OF LEONE BUYSE BY TOMMY LAVERGNE

WWW.ALBANYRECORDS.COM TROY1097 ALBANY RECORDS U.S. 915 BROADWAY, ALBANY, NY 12207 TEL: 518.436.8814 FAX: 518.436.0643 ALBANY RECORDS U.K. BOX 137, KENDAL, CUMBRIA LA8 0XD works by Kenneth Gaburo Ralph Shapey Maura Bosch TEL: 01539 824008 © 2009 ALBANY RECORDS MADE IN THE USA DDD John Corigliano Braxton Blake Scott Gendel WARNING: COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS IN ALL RECORDINGS ISSUED UNDER THIS LABEL. Martin Amlin Kurt Stallmann THE MUSIC Martin Amlin: Two Songs on Poems of Anne Fessenden Martin Amlin is Associate Professor of Music and chairman of the Composition and Theory Department at The 11 works on this compact disc represent four generations of American and a composi- University, as well as director of the Young Artists Composition Program at the tional time span of eight decades. Interestingly, the texts of these pieces span five centuries, from Tanglewood Institute. His compositions have been performed throughout the world and are published by poems by Richard Barnefield (1574-1627) and Thomas Dekker (c.1570-c.1644) to a text by the the . Both his Sonata for Piccolo and Piano and Sonata No. 2 for Flute and Piano Minnesota-based poet Jim Moore (b. 1943). In the ensemble repertoire for voice and flute, only have won the National Flute Association’s newly published music competition. A versatile performer, Corigliano’s Three Irish Folksong Settings and Copland’s As It Fell Upon a Day enjoy wide recognition Mr. Amlin has appeared as piano soloist with the Boston Pops and has been featured on the and frequent performances; the remaining works, all composed between 1992 and 2005, are relatively Boston Orchestra’s Prelude concerts at both Symphony Hall and Tanglewood. He studied in unknown and deserving of a broader audience. Fontainebleau and Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and received his master’s and doctoral degrees and the In selecting music for this disc we sought works that define skillful text setting and showcase Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. Recipient of grants from such organizations as contrasting compositional styles. Just as the American “character” defies definition because of its rich the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and ASCAP, he may be heard as cultural blend, the American musical “style” comprises myriad voices—each distinct in its conviction. both pianist and on the Albany, Hyperion, Koch International, Centaur, Crystal, Titanic, Opus One, Ashmont Music, Folkways, and Wergo labels. Amlin writes: “Two Songs on Poems by Anne Fessenden was premiered on a recital for the New York John Corigliano: Three Irish Folksong Settings Flute Club in January, 1998, by Mimmi Fulmer, soprano and Leone Buyse, alto flute. Anne Fessenden is a John Corigliano is one of the most prominent American composers of his generation. Awarded a Pulitzer poet whom I met at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. I was struck by the wonderful Prize in 2001 for his Symphony No. 2, he also received the in 1991 for his Symphony imagery in her poetry and thought that the alto flute was the perfect instrument for the evocative nature No. 1 and an Academy Award for Original Film Score () in 1999. He has composed primarily of these two texts. I used several different types of rhythmic devices (such as changing meters and for the symphonic medium, and includes several in his catalogue. Flutists are familiar with polyrhythms) in an attempt to give the music a floating quality in ‘Lookout.’ In ‘The Song Wheel’ there is his colorful , written in 1982 for flutist . His music is known for its a continual shifting between symmetrical and asymmetrical measures in order to create the image of a accessibility, and the Three Irish Folksong Settings are an excellent example of Corigliano’s ability to wheel that has been spinning for centuries and continues to spin unhindered.” compose in a contemporary idiom while conveying the timeless character of folk music. Written in 1988, Three Irish Folksong Settings have quickly become a staple in the repertoire for Kenneth Gaburo: Cantilena One voice and flute. Each of the songs deals with the universal issue of love in a different way, from the Through his work in American experimentalism, Kenneth Gaburo (1926-1993) had a major impact on a self-pitying mood of “The Salley Gardens” to the boisterous, youthful exuberance of “The Foggy Dew” generation of musical minds. Gifted as a teacher and jazz pianist, he composed and published exten- and the wistful longing of never-to-be-fulfilled love in “She Moved Through the Fair.” The last of these sively and was a pioneer in the field of electronic music. Among his teachers were Bernard Rogers at is particularly haunting in its modal language, and the three as a set are memorable for their engaging the Eastman School of Music and Goffredo Petrassi. During the course of his career he taught at the dialogue between voice and flute. University of Illinois, the University of California at San Diego, and the University of Iowa. As early as 1955 he began to combine taped concrete sounds with live performers, a genre that was to interest him for the rest of his life. Attracted to music as language and language as music, Gaburo began formal Henry Cowell: I Heard in the Night studies in linguistics in 1959 and devised the term “compositional linguistics.” In 1965 he founded the Henry Cowell (1897-1965) was a highly influential seeker who explored music of all cultures and whose New Music Choral Ensemble (NMCE), one of the first American choirs to perform avant-garde vocal compositional innovations revolutionized American music. A native of Menlo Park, California, he was music, combining improvisation with electronics, linguistics, computers, dance, mime, film, slides, and exposed from an early age to Irish folk music, Asian and Indian traditions, and his tape. Gaburo received awards from the Guggenheim, UNESCO, Thorne, Fromm, and Koussevitsky mother’s Midwestern folk tunes. Cowell studied composition with Charles Seeger at the University of Foundations and in 1974 founded Lingua Press Publishers, a publishing house committed to showcasing California and pursued further studies in world music. He became a celebrity in both the artist-generated works in all media relating to language and music. Cantilena One: Solo soprano is set and Europe as a performer of his own piano works, which included such sensational new compositional to a luminous text by Rabindranath Tagore. techniques as clusters, playing harmonics on the piano strings, and producing percussive sounds inside the piano. He taught at the New School for Social Research in New York, the Peabody Braxton Blake: Three Songs on Poems by Marianne Moore Conservatory, and , and counted among his students , Lou Harrison, and Braxton Blake studied at the Eastman School of Music (MM and PhD), the Aspen Music Festival, the (more briefly) George Gershwin and . His circle of friends included Charles Ives, Carl Bayreuth Festival, the Dartington Festival, the Staatliche Musikhochschule, Stuttgart, and the Ruggles, and Dane Rudhyar. Among his many awards and honors was his election in 1951 to the University of Houston. He has received commissions from the Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester, Denmark; American Institute of Arts and Letters. the Philharmonic Brass, Stuttgart; the West German Radio, Cologne; the Vail Valley Foundation, the City Cowell wrote more than 180 songs. I Heard in the Night was composed at a time when Cowell had of Mannheim, Ensemble GelberKlang, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the City of Stuttgart, and the Stuttgart returned to a more conservative language. It uses a text originally entitled “No Child” by the Irish poet Ballet. His music is published by Theodore Presser and Columbia University Music Press, has been Padraic Colum, also a playwright and novelist with a keen interest in folklore. The folk-like character recorded and broadcast by the Südwest Rundfunk, Baden-Baden, and can be heard on the Ars-Musici of its simple melody touchingly expresses the melancholy of the childless woman speaking. and Albany labels. Mr. Blake is a recipient of the Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. As conductor, he served as music director for the Erick Hawkins Dance Ralph Shapey: Lullaby Company, and appeared with such ensembles as the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the San Francisco A composition student of , Ralph Shapey (1921-2002) venerated masters of previous gen- Contemporary Music Players, the South German Radio Choir, and the Stuttgart Ballet. He has recorded erations and was particularly influenced by Edgard Varèse. Well known as both composer and conductor, extensively for the South German Radio and has also recorded for Muza and Col Legno. Shapey taught composition at the , mentored such distinguished composers as Blake writes: “These songs were composed for my wife, Freda Herseth. While some find a coolness and , and received numerous awards, including a MacArthur fellowship in Marianne Moore’s work, I am attracted to her craft, precise language, imagery, and grace; within her in 1982. His complex, texturally organized style has been termed “abstract expressionism.” He structured and virtuosic poems exists a world of powerful but elusive feelings and images. I often shift described himself as a “radical traditionalist” and further explained: “My music combines two funda- my musical language and palette according to the texts I set; in these songs I have tried to reflect not mentally contradictory impulses–-radical language and romantic sensibility. The melodies are disjunct only my perception of the content of Moore’s work, but also the veiled and structured language of the and dissonant; they contain “atonal” harmonies and extremes in register, dynamics, and textural poems. This is done not only through the vocal line but also with the flute, whose illuminating material contrast. Yet the musical structures are grandly formed and run the gamut of dramatic gestures. Like shifts between commenting upon and flowing with the poetic imagery.” the Romantics, I conceive of art in a deeply spiritual way. A great work of art transcends the immediate moment into a world of infinity. My credo is: 1) The music must speak for itself. 2) Great art is a surface, things seem quite pretty and lively, but behind it is the never-ceasing knowledge that we are miracle. 3) What the mind can conceive will be done.” powerless to break the patterns.” Deceptively simple in appearance, Lullaby for soprano and flute is a tightly-woven, highly con- centrated 12-tone miniature that includes simple, inverted, and retrograde canons. Marked “dolce, Kurt Stallmann: Lumina II cantabile,” it uses every interval—from grounding unisons, fourths, fifths, and octaves to tritones Recipient of a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship, Kurt Stallmann has devoted his creative energy to the and pungently dissonant seconds—to illuminate the gentle text. Lullaby was written for the composer’s synthesis and connection of the many mediums available to composers today. He has composed works grandchildren, Milo and Zettie Shapey. for acoustic groupings, acoustic/electronic groupings with interactive elements, environmental sounds, and purely synthetic sounds; has worked with improvisation; and frequently collaborates with Scott Gendel: Patterns artists from other disciplines. He is currently on the faculty at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Scott Gendel is professor of music at Albion College and also works as a freelance composer, arranger, and Music, where he directs REMLABS, the electronic and computer music facility. Previously he taught in vocal coach. In 2005 he won first prize in the ASCAP/Lotte Lehmann Foundation Song Cycle Competition, a the Department of Music at and served there as Associate Director of HUSEAC juried national award in its inaugural year. He received his DMA in composition from the University of (Harvard University Studios for Electro-Acoustic Composition). Stallmann’s compositions have been Wisconsin-Madison in 2005 and while working on that degree held the position of Associate Lecturer in performed throughout the United States and Europe and are published by BMG Ricordi, RM Williams composition, designing and teaching an undergraduate composition curriculum. He has received commis- Publishing, and Trigon Music Press (www.trigonmusic.com). Recent grants and commissions include sions from New Music New York, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the UW-Madison choral department, Meet the Composer, the Fromm Music Foundation, the Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris and other performers. His composition teachers include Stephen Dembski, Daron Hagen, and . County, and the ASCAP Annual Awards. In setting Patterns Gendel omitted one stanza and several other lines of the original poem. He About Lumina II Stallmann says: “The brief duration of this work probably reflects a deliberate notes: “Amy Lowell’s “Patterns” is seemingly a poetic paradox. It cries out fiercely against the attempt to create an organic continuity from cellular materials. The first four notes of Lumina II form the senseless patterns of war and modern life, but does so in a lovely, lilting, intricately patterned poetic primary musical cell, a reference shape that develops, multiplies, and transforms as it moves through language. Of course, this disparity is not a paradox, but a very intentional poetic choice. Lowell’s various registers and colors of the flute. Sequences of similar cells are distorted in time and register narrator loves the same world that she resents, and the poem is an almost magical articulation of and C# forms a constant reference throughout the work’s structure, both in terms of tonal references that crisis. ‘Patterns’ expresses despair through the eyes of beauty. and as a background element which subdivides the instrument’s range. Throughout the piece clarity “In my setting of “Patterns”, I aim to create a shimmering veil of musical texture, reflecting the and concision, inspired by qualities of pure light, serve as guiding principles.” patterned surface of the poem’s language. Toward that aim, all of the musical material is derived from a single, pungent harmony. That harmony is transposed, mirrored, morphed into a pretty accompani- Maura Bosch: In the Meantime ment pattern, transformed into a 12-note chromatic sequence, split into 2 complementary major and Maura Bosch studied music at the Hartt School of Music, the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, minor chords, divided into pitch-class sets, and generally played with over the course of the piece. As and Princeton University, where her teachers included Milton Babbitt, Paul Lansky, and Gunther “Patterns” evolves dramatically, it unfolds as a sort of mini-, and the varied musical materials Schuller. Afterwards, she moved to New York and then Europe before settling in Minneapolis in 1991. are used to delineate the emotional journey of the story. The effect is much like Lowell’s poem: on the She has collaborated with many poets, including James Merrill, with whom she wrote the libretto for her opera, Mirabell’s Book of Numbers. She has received commissions and grants from the St. Paul THE PERFORMERS Chamber Orchestra, the Dale Warland Singers, Cantus, the Jerome Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Walker Art Center. In addition to composing, Soprano Mimmi Fulmer performs repertoire ranging from early music Bosch is developing a method for teaching music composition to children in general music classes in to premieres of works written for her. She has been a featured soloist at the public schools. festivals around the nation, including Aspen and Bang on a Can, and in Bosch notes: “The concise poetic texts for In the Meantime were written by Minnesota poet Jim concerts at the Kennedy Center, Walker Art Center, and CAMI Hall. In Moore. They come from a group of poems called Tagore: Homages and Variations, which represent the 2005, she premiered a one-woman multi-media opera written for her at poet’s reflections on reading the Gitanjali, the 1911 collection of spiritual poetry by the Bengali poet the . Other engagements have taken her across the Rabindranath Tagore. These three songs were composed at the request of Mimmi Fulmer.” United States, from Miami to Pittsburgh, Chicago, and San Diego, as well as to Costa Rica. A member of the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble and a Aaron Copland: As It Fell Upon a Day featured soloist with the Madison Bach Musicians, she has also performed extensively with From 1921 to 1924 Aaron Copland studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, the formidable pedagogue fortepiano. Her opera repertoire includes standard works as well as the premieres of nine roles in eight who mentored generations of American composers. Those years were pivotal in Copland’s development . About Time, her first solo CD (Centaur) was called “a gratifying testimony to...composers in as he encountered influences of Stravinsky, Ravel, and many other composers living and writing in Paris America” by Opera News online and “a spectacular show” by American Record Guide. Her latest during the 1920s. As It Fell upon a Day was Copland’s response to a student assignment involving flute disc, released by Centaur in 2005, features music of New York composer Joseph Dubiel. She can and clarinet. Composed during the summer of 1923 after ear-opening visits to Vienna and Salzburg, it also be heard on the CRI label in works of Edward Cone and on the Innova label in music of Hans was premiered in February of 1924 at the Salle Pleyel with soprano Ada MacLeish (wife of the poet Sturm. She has presented numerous master classes and lecture-demonstrations at American uni- Archibald MacLeish) as soloist. The work evidenced maturity and became a part of Copland’s catalogue. versities and also in schools in rural Virginia, with the Currents Ensemble. A graduate of Princeton Copland discussed As It Fell Upon a Day in his autobiography with Vivian Perlis (Copland, 1900 University and New England Conservatory, she is Professor of Voice and Associate Director of Opera Through 1942, St. Martins/Marek, New York): “I had been playing around with some ideas for the flute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where her work has been recognized with both the Vilas and clarinet assignment when I came upon a poem by the seventeenth-century English poet Richard Associates and Chancellor’s Awards. Her students have held fellowships at Tanglewood and Merola, Barnefield. [It] had the simplicity and tenderness that moved me to attempt that poignant expression and are enjoying internationally successful teaching and performing careers, singing on Broadway musically. I got the idea to add a voice part to Boulanger’s assignment. The imitative counterpoint and with such companies as the Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, between the two instruments in the introduction would satisfy my teacher’s request. The harmonies Washington National Opera, El Paso Opera, Opera Tampa, and Opera Australia. that seem to evoke an early English flavor were suggested by the nature of the text. I am often asked about ‘modal’ writing in connections with As It Fell…. I can only say that I never learned all about the modes—major and minor were the only modes my generation were taught! If the music sounds modal it is because I wanted to come close to the expression of the poetry.” Flutist Leone Buyse relinquished her principal positions with the Boston THE TEXTS Symphony and Boston Pops in 1993 to pursue a more active solo and teach- A-down the hill I went at morn a-singing I did go. A-down the hill I went at morn she answered ing career after 22 years as an orchestral musician. A former member of the THE SALLEY GARDENS by William Butler Yeats soft and low, San Francisco Symphony and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, she Down by the Salley Gardens my love and I did meet; “Yes, I will be your own dear bride and I know has appeared as soloist on numerous occasions with those and She passed the Salley Gardens with that you’ll be true.” little snow-white feet. Then sighed in my arms and all her charms they were also with the Boston Symphony, the Boston Pops, the Utah Symphony, and She bid me take love easy, as the leaves hidden in the foggy dew. l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. She has performed with the Boston grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree. SHE MOVED THROUGH THE FAIR (Anonymous; first Symphony Chamber Players throughout Europe and Japan, with the Tokyo, collected in Donegal by Padraic Colum, from Wild Earth Juilliard, and Muir string quartets, in recital with and Yo-Yo Ma, and at many festivals, In a field by the river my love and I did stand, and Other Poems, H. Holt, 1916) including Aspen, Sarasota, Norfolk, and Orcas Island. The only American prizewinner in the 1969 Geneva And on my leaning shoulder she laid My young love said to me, “My mother won’t mind International Flute Competition, Ms. Buyse has presented recitals and master classes across the her snow-white hand. And my father won’t slight you for your lack of kine.” She bid me take life easy, as the grass And she stepped away from me and this she did say, United States and in Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Her solo recordings grows on the weirs; It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.” appear on the Crystal, Boston Records, and C.R.I. labels, and she may be heard as solo flutist of the But I was young and foolish and now am full of tears. Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, and San Francisco Symphony on the Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, Permission for use of the text of “The Salley Gardens” from The As she stepped away from me and she Poetical Works of William B. Yeats, Volume I (New York: Macmillan, moved through the fair, RCA Victor, and Sony Classical labels. Ms. Buyse is the Joseph and Ida Kirkland Mullen Professor of 1906) granted by A P Watt Ltd on behalf of Gráinne Yeats. And fondly I watched her move here and move there, Flute at Rice University in Houston, . Her students hold positions at major universities and in And then she turned homeward with one star awake many major orchestras, including the symphony orchestras of Cleveland, San Francisco, St. Louis, THE FOGGY DEW (anonymous) Like the swan in the evening moves over the lake. A-down the hill I went at morn a lovely maid I spied. Houston, Kansas City and San Diego, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Her hair was bright as the dew that wets Last night she came to me, she came softly in, Colorado Symphony, the New Zealand Symphony, the Adelaide Symphony, and the Singapore Symphony. sweet Anners verdant side. So softly she came that her feet made no din “Now where go ye sweet maid” said I. As she laid her hand on me and this she did say, She raised her eyes of blue. “It will not be long, love, ‘til our wedding day.” Michael Webster is Professor of Clarinet at Rice University and Artistic Director of the Houston Youth And smiled and said, “The boy I’ll wed I’m to Symphony. Former principal clarinetist of the Rochester Philharmonic and acting principal clarinetist meet in the foggy dew!” LOOKOUT by Anne Fessenden of the San Francisco Symphony, he has performed with the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center; Context To the high point, sparse, bent, weatherworn Go hide your bloom, ye roses red and and Da Camera of Houston; the Tokyo, Cleveland, Ying, Muir, Chester, Leontóvych, and Enso string Beside the trees, I have risen. droop ye lilies rare, I stop to gaze backward quartets; and at numerous festivals, including Marlboro, Santa Fe, Norfolk, Northwest, For you must pale for very shame before Across the contoured earth where I have walked Angel Fire, Sitka, Maui, Park City, Steamboat Springs, Orcas Island, Skaneateles, Stratford, Victoria, a maid so fair! That is the shape of my life. Says I, “Dear maid, will ye be my bride?” and Domaine Forget. With his wife, Leone Buyse, he co-founded the Webster Trio, which has recorded Beneath her eyes of blue Sloping peaks that follow one another for Crystal Records and the Japanese label, Nami. She smiled and said, “The boy I’ll wed I’m to Contain valleys that are invisible. meet in the foggy dew!” Above clear-weather clouds repeat the peaks And spot the sky as flocks of sheep. The awkwardness of life WHENCE DO YOU BRING THIS DISQUIET, MY LOVE? WHAT ARE YEARS? by Marianne Moore Pride sits you well, so strut, colossal bird, Dissolves into the larger atmosphere by Rabindranath Tagore, from Vaishnava Songs (from What is our innocence, No barnyard makes you look absurd; As far as I can see. The Fugitive and Other Poems, New York: Macmillan, 1921) what is our guilt? All are your brazen claws are staunch against defeat This view of life sustains me as I move. Whence do you bring this disquiet, my love? naked, none is safe. And whence Permission for use of the text of “To a Prize Bird”, “No Swan So Fine” and The night has thrown up from its depth this little hour, is courage: the unanswered question, “What Are Years?” from The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore (© Placed on that spot Viking/Macmillan, 1981) granted by Marianne Craig Moore, Literary that love may the resolute doubt— Executor for the Estate of Marianne Moore. All rights reserved. Higher than my life has been build a new world within these shut doors, to be lighted dumbly calling, deafly listening—that Lost in the view of where I’ve been by this solitary lamp. in misfortune, even death, Poised on a foothold beyond. NO CHILD by Padraic Colum, from Poems encourages others (New York: Macmillan, 1932) We have for music but a single reed which our two pairs and in its defeat, stirs THE SONG WHEEL by Anne Fessenden of lips must play I heard in the night the pigeons You can still hear the surf in the pines on by turns—for crown, only one garland to bind my hair the soul to be strong? He Stirring within their nest: And it comes from far out and seems not to cease. after I have put sees deep and is glad, who The pigeons’ stir was tender, The sea floor is shallow for many leagues it on your forehead. accedes to mortality Like a child’s hand at the breast. And the waves roll slowly in. and in his imprisonment rises Tearing the veil from my breast I shall make our upon himself as I cried: “O stir no more!” On the broad mown hill in the grove of pines bed on the floor; and one the sea in a chasm, struggling to be (My breast was touch’d with tears). There is little obstruction. kiss and one sleep of delight shall fill our free and unable to be, “O pigeons, make no stir. The wind blows for miles small boundless world. in its surrendering A childless woman hears!” And the pines sing of it. finds its continuing. NO SWAN SO FINE by Marianne Moore LULLABY (Adapted from “Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes” So he who strongly feels, by Thomas Dekker (c. 1570–c. 1644) The invisible flight across the low hills “No water so still as the Casts calms between each surge behaves. The very bird, dead fountains of Versailles.” No swan, grown taller as he sings, steels Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, That spins a phrase on a song wheel. with swart blind look askance Smiles awake you when you rise; The wind turns it around and it sings. his form straight up. Though he is captive, and gondoliering legs, so fine his mighty singing Sleep, pretty baby, do not cry as the chintz china one with fawn- And I will sing a lullaby. Whoever walks up in early September says, satisfaction is a lowly brown eyes and toothed gold thing, how pure a thing is joy. Rock them, rock them, lullaby. When the sun is warm and the pine needles smell collar on to show whose bird it was. And looks over the swaying goldenrod This is mortality, this is eternity. PATTERNS by Amy Lowell (from Men, Women and Ghosts, To the rolling foothills from where the wind comes Lodged in the Louis Fifteenth NewYork: Macmillan, 1916) Can close his eyes and hear the surf that comes in candelabrum-tree of cockscomb- From distant places far out TO A PRIZE BIRD by Marianne Moore I walk down the garden paths, tinted buttons, dahlias, And all the daffodils And with each surge lets out the sigh of a song sea urchins, and everlastings, You suit me well, for you can make me laugh, On singing hill where the song wheel spins. Nor are you blinded by the chaff Are blowing, and the bright blue squills. it perches on the branching foam I walk down the patterned garden-paths of polished sculptured that every wind sends spinning from the rick. It’s spinning still. In my stiff, brocaded gown. flowers—at ease and tall. The king is dead. You know to think, and what you think you speak With my powdered hair and jewelled fan, With much of Samson’s pride and bleak I too am a rare finality; and none dare bid you stop. Pattern. As I wander down The garden paths. My dress is richly figured, “Any answer, Madam,” said my footman. For the man who should loose me is dead, my own emptiness: without it, And the train “No, no answer.” Fighting with the Duke in Flanders, how could I be filled with you? Makes a pink and silver stain And I walked into the garden, In a pattern called a war. Text taken from The Long Experience of Love On the gravel, and the thrift Up and down the patterned paths, Christ! What are patterns for? (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1995). Copyright ©1995 Of the borders. In my stiff, correct brocade. by Jim Moore. Used with permission from Milkweed Editions. Just a plate of current fashion, The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun, IN THE MEANTIME by Jim Moore Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes. Each one. From early morning to late at night, PHILOMEL by Richard Barnefield (1574-1627) Not a softness anywhere about me, I stood upright too, I sit in this little park As it fell upon a day Only whalebone and brocade. Held rigid to the pattern where shadows and light play with each other, In the merry month of May, And I sink on a seat in the shade By the stiffness of my gown. hoping that one day the time will come Sitting in a pleasant shade Of a lime tree. For my passion Up and down I walked, when I can truly see. Which a grove of myrtles made, Wars against the stiff brocade. Up and down. But in the meantime, Beasts did leap and birds did sing, The daffodils and squills I sit here Trees did grow and plants did spring; Flutter in the breeze In a month he would have been my husband. singing under my breath. Everything did banish moan As they please. In a month, here, underneath this lime, In the meantime, the air is heavy Save the Nightingale alone: And I weep; We would have broke the pattern; with the promise of rain, She, poor bird, as all forlorn For the lime-tree is in blossom He for me, and I for him, and the sweetness that follows rain. Lean’d her breast up-till a thorn, And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom. He as Colonel, I as Lady, And there sung the dolefull’st ditty, On this shady seat. INSIDE by Jim Moore That to hear it was great pity. Underneath my stiffened gown He had a whim Fie, fie, fie! now would she cry; Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin, That sunlight carried blessing. Inside the light, the sky opens and the wind runs wild. Tereu, Tereu! by and by; A basin in the midst of hedges grown And I answered, “It shall be as you have said.” That to hear her so complain So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding, Now he is dead. YOUR JOY by Jim Moore Scarce I could from tears refrain; But she guesses he is near, For her griefs so lively shown And the sliding of the water In Summer and in Winter I shall walk It was your choice, not mine. Made me think upon mine own. Seems the stroking of a dear Up and down It was you who made me this way, Ah! thought I, thou mourn’st in vain, Hand upon her. The patterned garden-paths so that I can never come to the end of myself. None takes pity on thy pain: What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown! In my stiff, brocaded gown. Such is your wish. Your joy Senseless trees they cannot hear thee, I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground. The squills and daffodils is that I am forever unfinished. Ruthless beasts they will not cheer thee: All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground. Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, You love how I empty, then fill again King Pandion he is dead, and to snow. with you. You pocket me All thy friends are lapp’d in lead; Underneath the fallen blossom I shall go like a flute. Sometimes, at the top of a hill, All thy fellow birds do sing In my bosom, Up and down, you take me out and put me to your lips. Careless of thy sorrowing: Is a letter I have hid. In my gown. When you breathe into me like that, Even so, poor bird, like thee, It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke. Gorgeously arrayed, I am eternal and new. None alive will pity me. “Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell Boned and stayed. At such times, my heart forgets Died in action Thursday se’nnight.” And the softness of my body will be what a small thing it is. Ages pass As I read it in the white, morning sunlight, guarded from embrace and still you pour me out of your lips. The letters squirmed like snakes. By each button, hook, and lace. I have come to love