The Wonder of It
(SSAA, piano) 2'00"
A spirited exclamation on the amazing mystery of life. The piano accompaniment provides a cackling commentary and an enigmatic undergirding for the text. May be performed as part of a set of three. Level: Advanced.
Choral Score: $1.95 Add to Cart
Composer's Notes:
The Wonder of It is the second setting in the collection That Life Should Be! (Three Settings of American Women Poets), commissioned in 2011 by a consortium of intermediate and advanced treble choirs across the country. The individual titles are: The Grass So Little Has To Do (text by Emily Dickinson), The Wonder of It (text by Harriet Monroe), and A Birthday (text by Christina Rosetti).
THE WONDER OF IT
by Harriet Monroe (1860-1936)
How wild, how witch-like weird that life should be!
That the insensate rock dared dream of me,
And take to bursting out and burgeoning --
Oh, long ago -- yo ho! --
And wearing green! How stark and strange a thing
That life should be!
Oh, mystic mad, a rigadoon of glee,
That dust should rise, and leap alive, and flee
A-foot, a-wing, and shake the deeps with cries --
Oh far away -- yo-hay!
What moony masque, what arrogant disguise
That life should be!