Nocturne, Midsummer (SSA)
Music by Eric Pazdziora
Text by John Patrick Pazdziora
Commissioned and Premiered by PERI Trio, 2021
Robin A Pennington, Soprano
Elizabeth Peters, Soprano
Roberto Ifill, Countertenor
1. Andante moderato
2. Poco agitato
3. Pesante
4. Andante, molto cantabile
Texts
Your arms full, and your hair wet
I.
We were going down the meadow, I and you,
To gather sweet flowers for your small hands—
Iris, hyacinth, and daffodils,
Long-leaved willows bent to the fragile lotus.
You rested there a while, green shade around,
And I climbed the gean tree. A kingfisher
Dipped among the shallows, burning blue.
I looked to see you lie in innocence
And saw instead one black blur of earth,
Plucked by things invisible to see,
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
All strange wonders—a little life, passing
In the gleam of a kingfisher’s wing.
II.
Autumn escaped us. Blighted harvest clings
To hollow branches, riming frost-gray fields,
Shattering the brittle maiden flowers,
Casting willow leaves on tattered lotus.
A ragged shrike, in savage scorn,
Leans to peck against the thorn,
So rudely cries,
Fie! Fie! Fie!
The present moment’s all my lot
To tear as soon as it is got,
The time that is to come, is not,
So how can it be mine?
Fie! Fie! Fie!
O word of fear!
The worm’s cry, the wind’s cry,
Autumn’s disconsolate voice.
III.
Winter is a god with many names:
Frost Father and Snow Daughter,
Fell time and pale time.
Old Time, the Kindly King,
Bishop of Fools, Lord of Misrule,
Abbot of Madness, Tatterdemalion.
The old woman who never dies.
The Old Wife. Witch Mother.
Cold Crow, the tree-killer.
The wolf of the field.
The widow-maker.
The Dead One.
IV.
I walked up there today,
Just in the former way,
Where leaves dropped bleak and gray
Among the willow.
I stopped and listened for you,
A minute, maybe, or two,
Hearing birdsong pour through
Fraying fog.
The little swallow, flying,
In the greenwood, crying,
The tender swallow, flying,
Swiftly sang,
O ho ro
i ri ri
cadul gu lo
At the crocus-purple hour,
Her brood eave-nestled
In sagging bower
She swooped and sang
O ho ro
i ri ri
Little swallow on the rooftree, crying
O ho ro
i ri ri
cadul gu lo