"Let Us play Yesterday —" is the tenth song in Leo Smit's song cycle Childe Emilie. Childe Emilie is the first of Smit's six song cycles setting the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

For more information about Leo Smit's Emily Dickinson song cycles, please visit the pages for The Ecstatic Pilgrimage and Leo Smit.

For inquiries about Leo Smit, please contact Nils Vigeland at [email protected].

Text

Let Us play Yesterday — (poem 728)
by Emily Dickinson

Let Us play Yesterday —
I — the Girl at school —
You — and Eternity — the
Untold Tale —

Easing my famine
At my Lexicon —
Logarithm — had I — for Drink —
‘Twas a dry Wine —

Somewhat different — must be —
Dreams tint the Sleep —
Cunning Reds of Morning
Make the Blind — leap —

Still at the Egg-life —
Chafing the Shell —
When you troubled the Ellipse —
And the Bird fell —

Manacles be dim — they say —
To the new Free —
Liberty — Commoner —
Never could — to me —

‘Twas my last gratitude
When I slept — at night —
‘Twas the first Miracle
Let in — with Light —

Can the Lark resume the Shell —
Easier — for the Sky —
Wouldn’t Bonds hurt more
Than Yesterday?

Wouldn’t Dungeons sorer frate
On the Man — free —
Just long enough to taste —
Then — doomed new —

God of the Manacle
As of the Free —
Take not my Liberty
Away from Me —

Sheet Music

Childe Emilie

Composer(s): Leo Smit

Song(s): 1. I was the slightest in the House
2. Through lane it lay - through bramble
3. It troubled me as once I was
4. The Child's faith is new
5. Softened by Time's consummate plush
6. Papa above!
7. We talked as Girls do
8. They shut me up in Prose
9. I cried at Pity - not at Pain
10. Let Us play Yesterday
11. A loss of something ever felt I
12. Good Morning - Midnight
13. Up Life's Hill with my little Bundle
14. I'm ceded - I've stopped being Theirs

Voice Type: Mezzo-Soprano, Soprano

Buy via Theodore Presser Company

Let Us play Yesterday —

Text

Sheet Music

Childe Emilie

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