The Lover: The Love Poetry of Carl Sandburg
In 1997 keyboardist Michael Hoppe released The Poet: Romances for Cello, a music-meets-poetry collection that included a Carl Sandburg poem ("The Great Hunt"), accompanied by a 1926 photograph of Sandburg shot by Hoppe's grandfather, E.O. Hoppe. Descendants of the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner had not known of the photo's existence, leading the family and Hoppe to become acquainted and, ultimately, collaborators on this mostly spoken-word project. The Lover features 18 Sandburg poems, softly and thoughtfully read by flautist Tim Wheater (a longtime Hoppe colleague) in his handsome English baritone, and underscored with subdued (faint, even) audio backdrops shaped by Hoppe. Hoppe also drops in six gentle, chamberlike interludes, two of which feature longing, almost reverential soprano voicings. Thus the disc projects a hushed atmosphere and an earnest, intimate tone, though it is less about music and more about the poetry. A few of the selections, such as the lamenting "Mag," are unusual inclusions, yet the disc's overall impact is touching and, at times, memorable. The packaging, enhanced by a nice slipcase and a 28-page CD booklet (which includes the full text of all poems, plus notes from Sandburg biographer Penelope Niven), is first-rate, framing the moods and complexities of Sandburg's verse: "Love, with little hands / Comes and touches you / With a thousand memories, / And asks you / Beautiful, unanswerable questions." --Terry Wood / Amazon.com
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专辑曲目
1. Introductions To Whatever Gardens 2:02
2. The Great Hunt 2:16
3. Mag 1:24
4. Interlude: Lover's Lament 3:43
5. Monotone 1:15
6. Joy 0:53
7. Dreams In The Dusk 1:07
8. Interlude: Beloved 3:04
9. Under The Harvest Moon 1:47
10. Home Thoughts 1:24
11. Dream Girl 1:38
12. Interlude: Lachrymosa 2:45
13. The Wind Sings Welcome In Early Spring 1:53
14. Tawny 1:02
15. The First Kiss Came With Flame 1:05
16. Interlude: The Unforgetting Heart 4:46
17. She Held Herself A Deep Pool For Him 1:09
18. Careless Hearts 0:49
19. Valley Song 1:15
20. Interlude: Grace 3:52
21. Offering And Rebuff 1:04
22. An Old Woman 1:08
23. Explanation Of Love 1:37
24. Interlude: Jude's Theme 4:34
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I cannot tell you now;
When the wind’s drive and whirl
Blow me along no longer,
And the wind’s a whisper at last—
Maybe I’ll tell you then—
some other time.
When the rose’s flash to the sunset
Reels to the rack and the twist,
And the rose is a red bygone,
When the face I love is going
And the gate to the end shall clang,
And it’s no use to beckon or say, “So long”—
Maybe I’ll tell you then—
some other time.
I never knew any more beautiful than you:
I have hunted you under my thoughts,
I have broken down under the wind
And into the roses looking for you.
I shall never find any
greater than you.
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Mag
I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish you never quit your job and came along with me.
I wish we never bought a license and a white dress
For you to get married in the day we ran off to a minister
And told him we would love each other and take care of each other
Always and always long as the sun and the rain lasts anywhere.
Yes, I’m wishing now you lived somewhere away from here
And I was a bum on the bumpers a thousand miles away dead broke.
I wish the kids had never come
And rent and coal and clothes to pay for
And a grocery man calling for cash,
Every day cash for beans and prunes.
I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish to God the kids had never come.
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Monotone
The monotone of the rain is beautiful,
And the sudden rise and slow relapse
Of the long multitudinous rain.
The sun on the hills is beautiful,
Or a captured sunset sea-flung,
Bannered with fire and gold.
A face I know is beautiful--
With fire and gold of sky and sea,
And the peace of long warm rain.
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Joy
Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands
And take it when it runs by,
As the Apache dancer
Clutches his woman.
I have seen them
Live long and laugh loud,
Sent on singing, singing,
Smashed to the heart
Under the ribs
With a terrible love.
Joy always,
Joy everywhere--
Let joy kill you!
Keep away from the little deaths.
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Dreams in the Dusk
Dreams in the dusk,
Only dreams closing the day
And with the day’s close going back
To the gray things, the dark things,
The far, deep things of dreamland.
Dreams, only dreams in the dusk,
Only the old remembered pictures
Of lost days when the day’s loss
Wrote in tears the heart’s loss.
Tears and loss and broken dreams
May find your heart at dusk.
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Under the Harvest Moon
Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
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Home Thoughts
THE SEA rocks have a green moss.
The pine rocks have red berries.
I have memories of you.
Speak to me of how you miss me.
Tell me the hours go long and slow.
Speak to me of the drag on your heart,
The iron drag of the long days.
I know hours empty as a beggar’s tin cup on a rainy day, empty as a soldier’s sleeve with an arm lost.
Speak to me …
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Dream Girl
You will come one day in a waver of love,
Tender as dew, impetuous as rain,
The tan of the sun will be on your skin,
The purr of the breeze in your murmuring speech,
You will pose with a hill-flower grace.
You will come, with your slim, expressive arms,
A poise of the head no sculptor has caught
And nuances spoken with shoulder and neck,
Your face in a pass-and-repass of moods
As many as skies in delicate change
Of cloud and blue and flimmering sun.
Yet,
You may not come, O girl of a dream,
We may but pass as the world goes by
And take from a look of eyes into eyes,
A film of hope and a memoried day.
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The Wind Sings Welcome in Early Spring
THE GRIP of the ice is gone now.
The silvers chase purple.
The purples tag silver.
They let out their runners
Here where summer says to the lilies: 5
“Wish and be wistful,
Circle this wind-hunted, wind-sung water.”
Come along always, come along now.
You for me, kiss me, pull me by the ear.
Push me along with the wind push. 10
Sing like the whinnying wind.
Sing like the hustling obstreperous wind.
Have you ever seen deeper purple …
this in my wild wind fingers?
Could you have more fun with a pony or a goat? 15
Have you seen such flicking heels before,
Silver jig heels on the purple sky rim?
Come along always, come along now.
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Tawny
THESE are the tawny days: your face comes back.
The grapes take on purple: the sunsets redden early on the trellis.
The bashful mornings hurl gray mist on the stripes of sunrise.
Creep, silver on the field, the frost is welcome.
Run on, yellow balls on the hills, and you tawny pumpkin flowers, chasing your lines of orange.
Tawny days: and your face again.
Thanks FE. Can't agree with you any more that it's a strikng beauty.
I only found some of the 18 poems. Have you found all of them?
You too have a wonderful long weekend.
this album is stunningly beautiful. your flash perfectly matchs the collection. how soul-stirring and heart-moving it is. i am searching his poetry right now:)
thanks.