Text
Tygers of Wrath
by Various Authors
The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.*
There is no spark of reason in the world
And all is raked in ashy heaps of beastliness.**
We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.***
This is not what man hates,
Yet he can curse but this.
Harsh Gods and hostile Fates
And dreams: this only is.****
*–William Blake (1757-1827) from Proverbs of Hell
**–John Marston (1576-1632) from The Malcontent
***–A. E. Housman (1859-1936) from The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux
****–Mathew Arnold (1822-1888) from Empedocles on Etna
Recordings
Music@Menlo Live '03: Innovation / Evolution: The Unfolding of Music 1720 - 2002, Vol. 5 (Voices of Our Time)
(John Corigliano, John Harbison and Ned Rorem)
2003
Sheet Music
Aftermath
Composer(s): Ned Rorem
Song(s): 1. The Drum
2. Tygers of Wrath
3. The Fury of the Aerial Bombardment
4. The Park
5. Sonnet LXIV
6. On his Seventy-Fifth Birthday
7. Grief
8. Remorse for Any Death
9. Losses
10. Then