The Ride (Huub de Lange)

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• (Posted 2007-11-15)  CPDL #15422: 

Editor: Huub de Lange (submitted 2007-11-15).   Score information: A4, 7 pages, 148 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: The Ride
Composer: Huub de Lange
Lyricist: Richard Wilbur

Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 2007
Description: composition on a poem by Richard Wilbur. Song #2 of Four Wilbur Songs.
For an orchestra version of this song see: part #3 of A Symphony of Dreams.

Original text and translations

English text

The Ride

The horse beneath me seemed
To know what course to steer
Through the horror of snow I dreamed,
And so I had no fear,

Nor was I chilled to death
By the wind’s white shudders, thanks
To the veils of his patient breath
And the mist of sweat from his flanks.

It seemed that all night through,
Within my hand no rein
And nothing in my view
But the pillar of his mane,

I rode with magic ease
At a quick, unstumbling trot
Through shattering vacancies
On into what was not,

Till the weave of the storm grew thin,
With a threading of cedar-smoke,
And the ice-blind pane of an inn
Shimmered, and I awoke.

How shall I now get back
To the inn-yard where he stands,
Burdened with every lack,
And waken the stable-hands

To give him, before I think
That there was no horse at all,
Some hay, some water to drink,
A blanket and a stall?

Richard Wilbur