Oh Virgil Songs

Songs Performed in Oh Virgil A Theatrical Portrait

The Tiger By William Blake

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

English Usage By Marianne Moore

Make a fuss and be tedious.
I'm annoyed?
yes; am avoid "adore" and "bore";
am, I say, by the word bore, bored;
refuse to use "divine" to mean something pleasing: terrific color for some horror.
Though flat myself, I'd say that "Atlas" (pressed glass) looks best embossed.
I refuse to use "enchant," "dement"; even "frightful plight" (however justified) or "frivolous fool" (however suitable).
I've escaped, eh? am still trapped by these word diseases.
No pauses, the phrases lack lyric force; sound caprick-like Attic Afric Alcaic or freak calico Greek.
(Not verse of course) I'm sure of this:
Nothing mundane is divine;
Nothing divine is mundane.

The Land of Dreams by William Blake

Awake, awake my little Boy!
Thou wast thy Mother's only joy:
Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep?
Awake! thy Father does thee keep.

"O, what land is the Land of Dreams?
What are its mountains, and what are its streams?
O Father, I saw my Mother there,
Among the lilies by waters fair.

Among the lambs clothed in white
She walked with her Thomas in sweet delight.
I wept for joy, like a dove I mourn -
O when shall I return again?"

Dear child, I also by pleasant streams
Have wandered all night in the Land of Dreams;
But though calm and warm the waters wide,
I could not get to the other side.

"Father, O Father, what do we here,
In this land of unbelief and fear?
The Land of Dreams is better far
Above the light of the Morning Star.”

Let's Take A Walk by Kenneth Koch.

Let's take a walk in the city
Till our shoes get wet
And when we see the traffic lights and the moon
Let's take a smile off the ashcan
Let's walk into town
Let's take a walk into the river
(I can even do that tonight)
Where If I kiss you
Please remember with your shoes off
You're so beautiful like a lifted umbrella orange and white
We may never discover the blue overcoat
Maybe never never
O blind with this (love)
Let's walk into the first rivers of morning
As you are seen
To be bathed in a light white light
Come on.

Susie Asado by Gertrude Stein

Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Susie Asado which is a told tray sure.
A lean on the shoe this means slips slips hers.
When the ancient light grey is clean it is yellow, it is a silver seller.
This is a please this is a please there are the saids to jelly.
These are the wets these say the sets to leave a crown to Incy.
Incy is short of incubus.
A pot. A pot is a beginning of a rare bit of trees. Trees tremble, the old vats are in bobbles, bobbles which shade and shove and render clean, render clean must.
Drink pups.
Drink pups drink pups lease a sash hold, see it shine and a bobolink has pins. It shows a nail.
What is a nail. A nail is unison.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.

Follow Your Saint by Thomas Campion.

Follow your Saint, follow with accents sweet ;
Haste you, sad noates, fall at her flying feete :
There, wrapt in cloud of sorrowe pitie moue,
And tell the rauisher of my soule I perish for her loue.
But if she scorns my neuer-ceasing paine,
Then burst with sighing in her sight, and nere returne againe.
All that I soong still to her praise did tend,
Still she was first ; still she my songs did end.
Yet she my loue and Musicke both doeth flie,
- The Musicke that her Eccho is and beauties simpathie;
Then let my Noates pursue her scornfull flight :
It shall suffice that they were breath'd and dyed for her delight.

The Little Black Boy by William Blake.

My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child:
But I am black as if bereav'd of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree
And sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And pointing to the east began to say.

Look on the rising sun: there God does live
And gives his light, and gives his heat away.
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning joy in the noon day.

And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love,
And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear
The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice.
Saying: come out from the grove my love & care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.

Thus did my mother say and kissed me,
And thus I say to little English boy;
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy:

I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear,
To lean in joy upon our fathers knee.
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him and he will then love me.

Where is Where?, aria from The Mother of Us All (Susan B. Anthony, End of Act II), libretto by Gertrude Stein

Where is where
In my long life of effort and strife
Dear Life
Life is strife
In my long life, it will not come and go
I tell you so
It will stay it will pay
But do we want what we have got,
Has it not gone,
What made it live
Has it not gone
Because it is had
In my long life
In my long life
Life is Strife
I was a martyr all my life
Not to what I won but to what was done
Do you know because I tell you so
Or do you know do you know
My long life, My long life.