Dissonance (Vocal)

for baritone voice & piano

Epithalamium in the Modern Manner
The round, red moon ran a level eye along the hayfield,
Appraising conditions with a view to possibilities.
It was the moon’s business to see that the shadows of the cocks
were of sufficient size,
As a preliminary to the seasonal arrival of the next generation.

“To one enamored of dragonflies,
What is a chip hat with a ribbon round it?
To one engrossed in a game of cribbage,
What is the importance of the Treaty of Ghent?”
Which shows that Archibald was in a naughty humour,
And Joanna more than usually occupied with the counting of
grass-blades.
The moon caught them in her long orange arms
And jostled them tighter with so thorough a completeness
That they fell, giggling, into a haycock shadow,
As perfect a pair of young animals as need be
For the maintenance of the species man on an ant-corroded
planet.

Dissonance
From my window I can see the moon-light stroking the smooth
surface of the river.
The trees are silent, there is no wind.
Admirable pre-Raphaelite landscape,
Lightly touched with ebony and silver.
I alone am out of keeping:
An angry red gash
Proclaiming the restlessness
Of an incongruous century.

The Sixteenth Floor
The noise of the city sounds below me.
It clashes against the houses
And rises like smoke through the narrow streets.
It polishes the marble fronts of houses,
Grating itself against them,
And they shine in the lamplight
And cast their echoes back upon the asphalt of the streets.

But I hear no sound of your voice,
The city is incoherent – trivial,
And my brain aches with emptiness.

Threnody
On an evening of black snow
I walked along the causeway,
Wishing that I too might melt
Between the agitated fingers
Of a stuttering, intolerable sea.

Ephemera
Silver-green lanterns tossing among windy braches:
So an old man thinks
Of the loves of his youth.

-Amy Lowell


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