Escher – Songs of love and eternity

  1. These are the days when birds come back

These are the days when Birds come back —
A very few — a Bird or two —
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old — old sophistries of June —
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee —
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear —
And softly thro’ the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze —
Permit a child to join.

Thy sacred emblems to partake —
They consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!

2. Wild nights

Wild nights! — Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile — the [Wind]1 —
To a heart in port, —
Done with the Compass, —
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden —
Ah! the Sea!
Might I but moor — Tonight —
In thee!

3. Heart, we will forget him

Heart, we will forget him
You and I, tonight.
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me,
That I [my thoughts may dim]1;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!

4. The wind tapped like a tired man

The wind tapped like a tired man,
And like a host, “Come in,”
I boldly answered; entered then
My residence within

A rapid, footless guest,
To offer whom a chair
Were as impossible as hand
A sofa to the air.

No bone had he to bind him,
His speech was like the push
Of numerous humming-birds at once
From a superior bush.

His countenance a billow,
His fingers, if he pass,
Let go a music, as of tunes
Blown tremulous in glass.

He visited, still flitting;
Then, like a timid man,
Again he tapped – ’t was flurriedly –
And I became alone.

5. To make a prairie it takes a clover

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, –
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.

Muziek: Rudolph Escher

Tekst: Emily Dickinson.

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