The Garden

Voicing: SSAA, flute, and piano
Text: Alice Meynell (1847-1922)
Published by: Canadian Music Centre

Notes: Composed in 2006 as a commissioned work for the National Youth Choir, which did the first performance at Podium 2006 in Victoria, B.C., Dr. Richard Sparks, conducting.

My heart shall be thy garden.
Come, my own,
   Into thy garden; thine be happy hours
   Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers,
From root to crowning petal thine alone.

Thine is the place from where the seeds are sown
   Up to the sky enclosed, with all its showers.
   But ah, the birds, the birds! Who shall build bowers
To keep these thine? O friend, the birds have flown.

For as these come and go, and quit our pine
   To follow the sweet season, or, new-comers,
      Sing one song only from our alder-trees,

My heart has thoughts, which, though thine eyes hold mine,
   Flit to the silent world and other summers,
      With wings that dip beyond the silver seas.

Performed by: Concerto Della Donna, Iwan Edwards, conductor, Pamela Reimer, piano, Josee Poirier, flute

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Alice Meynell