About this work:
LOVE SONGS (1998) Poems by Gorges, Dickinson, Rossetti and Booth.
Commissioned by Peter Papesch for his wife, Barbara.
1. [This] Face by Arthur Gorges (1557-1625)
This face - This tongue - His wit
so fair - so sweet - so sharp
first bent - then drew - then hit
mine eye - mine ear - my heart
Mine eye - Mine ear - My heart
to like - to learn - to love
his face - his tongue - his wit
doth lead - doth teach - doth move
This face - This tongue - His wit
with beams - with sound - with art
doth blind - doth charm - doth knit
mine eye - mine ear - my heart
Mine eye - Mine ear - My heart
with life - with hope - with skill
his face - his tongue - his wit
doth feed - doth feast - doth fill
O face - O tongue - O wit
with frowns - with checks - with smart
wrong not - vex not - wound not
mine eye - mine ear - my heart
This eye - This ear - This heart
shall joy - shall yield - shall swear
his face - his tongue - his wit
to serve - to trust - to fear
2. Love Thou Art High by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Love - thou art high -
I cannot climb thee -
But, were it Two -
Who knows but we -
Taking turns - at the Chimborazo -
Ducal - at last - stand up by thee -
Love - thou art deep -
I cannot cross thee -
But, were there Two -
Instead of One -
Rower, and Yacht - some sovereign Summer -
Who knows - but we'd reach the Sun?
Love - thou art Veiled -
A few - behold thee -
Smile - and alter - and prattle - and die -
Bliss - were an Oddity - without thee -
Nicknamed by God -
Eternity -
3. A Birthday by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleur-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life Is come,
my love is come to me.
4. Pairs by Philip Booth (born, 1925)
Years now, good days
more than half the year,
they row late afternoons
out through the harbor
to the bell, a couple
with gray hair, an old
green rowboat. Given sun,
their four oars, stroke
by stroke, glint wet,
so far away that even
in light air their
upwind voices barely
carry. No words translate
to us on shore, more
than a mile from where
they pull and feather.
All we hear is how,
like seaducks, they
seem constantly to
murmur. And even
after summer's gone,
as they row out or
home, now and again
we hear, we cannot help
but hear, their years
of tidal laughter.