(Hark Close and Still What I Now Whisper)

"(Hark Close and Still What I Now Whisper)" is the third song of Jeremy Gill's Whitman Portrait. The song is for mezzo soprano and piano.

Date: 2014Composer: Jeremy GillText: Walt WhitmanSong Collection: Whitman Portrait

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(Hark close and still what I now whisper to you,
I love you, O you entirely possess me,
O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and lawless,
Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more lawless than we;)
…..
(O I willingly stake all for you,
O let me be lost if it must be so!
O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?
What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust each other if it must be so;)
…..
(I have loiter’d too long as it is,)
…..
(Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return.)

—“From Pent-up Aching Rivers,” adapted by Jeremy Gill

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