Remembering

FOR MEDIUM OR HIGH VOICE AND PIANO

Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Dedicated to Judith Bettina

Premiere: February 24, 1987; Merkin Concert Hall, New York; Group for Contemporary Music; Judith Bettina, soprano; Tobias Picker, piano

Duration: 5’

Remembering

Edna St. Vincent Millay “Time does not bring relief; you all have lied”

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

The old snows melt from every mountain-side,

And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;

But last year’s bitter loving must remain

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.

There are a hundred places where I fear

To go,—so with his memory they brim.

And entering with relief some quiet place

Where never fell his foot or shone his face

I say, “There is no memory of him here!”

And so stand stricken, so remembering him.