• PART ONE: I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away.
And we are done forever, by and by.
I shall forget you as I said.
But now if you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer lived.
• PART TWO: Into Love and Out Again
-- Dorothy Parker
Soprano:
1. "Theory"
Into love and out again,
Thus I went and thus I go.
Spare your voice and hold your pen Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?
2. "Observation"
If! don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
IfI'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If! abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because 1 do not give a damn.
3. "Indian Summer"
In youth, it was a way I had
To do my best to please,
And change with ev'ry passing lad,
To suit his theories.
But now I know the things I know,
And do the things I do;
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you.
4. "Healed"
Oh, when I flung my heart away,
The year was at its fall.
I saw my dear, the other day,
Beside a flowering wall;
And this was all I had to say:
"1 thought that he was tall."
5. "Sonnet for the End of a Sequence"
So take my vows and scatter them to sea;
Who swears the sweetest is no more than human.
And say no kinder words than these of me:
"Ever she longed for peace, but was a woman!
And thus they are whose silly female dust
Needs little enough to clutter it and bind it,
Who meet a slanted gaze, and ever must go
Build themselves a soul to dwell behind it."
For now I am my own again, my friend!
This scar but points the whiteness of my breast;
This frenzy, like its betters, spins an end,
And now I am my own. And that is best.
Therefore, I am immeasurably grateful to you,
For proving shallow, false, and hateful.
• PART THREE: To Love In Vain
- Oscar Wilde
Baritone:
1. "Serenade"
She will not come, I know her well,
Of lover's vows she hath no care.
And little good a man can tell,
Of one so cruel and so fair.
True love is but a woman's toy,
They never know the lover's pain,
And I who loved as loves a boy,
Must love in vain, must love in vain.
2. "La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente"
My limbs are wasted with a flame,
My feet are sore with traveling,
For, calling on my Lady's name,
My lips have now forgot to sing.
3. "Her Voice"
Sweet, there is nothing left to say,
But this, that love is never lost,
Keen winter stabs the breast of May
Whose crimson roses burst his frost,
Ships tempest tossed
will fmd a harbour in some bay,
And so we may.
And there is nothing left to do
But to kiss once again and part,
Nay there is nothing we should rue,
I have my beauty, you your art,
Nay, do not start,
One world was not enough for two
Like me and you.
• PART FOUR: Well, 1 Have Lost You
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay
• PART SIX: When Love Was True
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay
Mezzo & Baritone:
Soprano & Tenor:
Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will. Kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; J was nut one fur keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If! had loved you less or played you slyly
Imight have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish - and men do I shall have only good to say of you.
When we that wore the myrtle wear the dust,
And years of darkness cover up our eyes,
And all our arrogant laughter and sweet lust
Keep counsel with the scruples of the wise.
Then let the fortunate breathers of the air,
When we lie speechless in the muffling mould,
Tease not our ghosts with slander, pause not there
To say that love is false and soon grows cold,
But pass in silence the mute grave of two
Who lived and died believing love was true.
• PART FIVE: Apples and Oranges
. -- Dorothy Parker
J. "L'Envoi"
Oh, beggar or prince, no more, no more!
Be off and away with your strut and show.
The sweeter the apple, the blacker the coreScratch a lover, and find a foe!
2. ''Unfortunate Coincidence"
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying Lady make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
3. "Comment"
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
4. "The Apple Tree"
When first we saw the apple tree
The boughs were dark and straight,
But never grief to give had we,
Though Spring delayed so late.
When ast I came away from there
The boughs were heavy hung,
But little grief had I to spare
For Summer. perished young.
• PART SEVEN: True Knowledge
-- Oscar Wilde
l. "Requiescaf'
Tread lightly, she is near under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear the daisies grow.
Lily-like, white as snow, she hardly knew
She was a woman, so sweetly she grew.
Peace, peace, she cannot hear lyre or sonnet,
All my life's buried here, lay earth upon it.
2. "The True Knowledge"
Thou knowest all;
I seek in vain what lands to till or sow with seed.
The land is black with briar and weed
Nor cares for falling tears or rain.
'
Thou knowest all;
I sit and wait with blinded eyes and hands that fail.
Isit and wait 'til the last lifting of the veil,
And the first op'ning of the gate.
Thou knowest all;
Icannot see, Itrust Ishall not live in vain,
I know that we shall meet again
In some divine eternity.
• PART EIGHT: Love Is Not All
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay
Ouartct:
Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink
nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink,
And rise and sink and rise and sink again.
It may well be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and yearning for release,
Or nagged by want, past resolution's pow'r,
I might be willing to sell your love for peace.
Or trade the memory of this night for food,
It well may be. I do not think I would.