Texts by Walt Whitman
I. Joy, shipmate, joy!
II. The Sobbing of the Bells
III. Now Finalè to the Shore
Composed 1999. Duration: 6’00”
Instrumentation
high voice / piano
Texts
Joy, shipmate, joy!
Joy, shipmate, joy!
(Pleas’d to my soul at death I cry,)
Our life is closed, our life begins,
The long, long anchorage we leave,
The ship is clear at last, she leaps!
She swiftly courses from the shore,
Joy, shipmate, joy!
The Sobbing of the Bells
[Midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1881]
The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
The slumbers rouse, the rapport of the People,
(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the sad reverberations,)
The passionate toll and clang- city to city, joining, sounding, passing,
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.
Now Finalè to the Shore
Now finalè to the shore,
Now land and life finalè and farewell,
Now Voyager depart, (much, much for thee is yet in store,)
Often enough hast thou adventur’d o’er the seas,
Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,
Duly again to port and hawser’s tie returning;
But now obey thy cherish’d secret wish,
Embrace thy friends, leave all in order,
To port and hawser’s tie no more returning,
Depart upon thy endless cruise old Sailor.