Description

Voicing: SSAATTBB choir, SA soli, a cappella

Level: 4

Duration: 3:45

To see perusal score, please contact Jocelyn.

Advanced high school choirs and college choirs will especially love this atmospheric setting ofpoetry by John Gardiner Brainard. Singers will love the lush harmony and extended vocal techniques, and conductors can choose to feature two female soloists.

Text

I saw two clouds at morning,
Tinged with the rising sun,
And in the dawn they floated on,
And mingled into one;
I thought that morning cloud was blest,
It moved so sweetly to the west.

I saw two summer currents
Flow smoothly to their meeting,
And join their course, with silent force,
In peace each other greeting:
Calm was their course through banks of green,
While dimpling eddies played between.

Such be your gentle motion,
Till life’s last pulse shall beat;
Like summer’s beam, and summer’s stream,
Float on, in joy, to meet
A calmer sea, where storms shall cease—
A purer sky, where all is peace.

– John Gardiner Brainard