SONG - AFTER WALT WHITMAN

Re-composed movement from "Concerto for Orchestra" for Boys' Chorus and Orchestra.

Text: Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,  Out of the
mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,  Out of the Ninth-month midnight,  Over
the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed,
wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot,  Down from the shower’d halo,  5
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,  Out
from the patches of briers and blackberries,  From the memories of the bird that
chanted to me, 
From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,  From
under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,  10
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist,  From
the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease,  From the myriad
thence-arous’d words, 
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,  From such, as now
they start, the scene revisiting,  15 As a flock, twittering, rising,
or overhead passing, 
Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly,  A man—yet by these tears a little boy
again, 
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,  I, chanter of pains
and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,  20 Taking all hints to use
them—but swiftly leaping beyond them,  A reminiscence sing.