Lullaby for a dark hour

"Lullaby for a dark hour" is the first song from Gardner Read's Three Songs for Mezzo-Soprano, op. 68 song cycle.

Date: 1946Composer: Gardner ReadSong Collection: Three Songs for Mezzo-Soprano, op. 68

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Text

Lullaby for a dark hour

by Alfred Kreymborg

 

O hearts that are heavy with earth,     

Come out from under.     

Let the world thunder away or pass overhead     

with the dead of another day.     

And if you must beat with the times     

since the times are yours.     

Follow the course of a river, the source of the seas,     

or resign yourselves to the skies.     

Nature is older and wiser than you’ll ever be,     

And nothing you may hide from her can make her weep.     

For she has a star for you where the children sleep.

Recordings

Gardner Read: The Art of Song

(William Blake, Frances Frost, James Joyce, Gardner Read, Henry Russell, Rabindranath Tagore and Jean Starr Untermeyer)

1999

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