CANTICLE TO HOPE
(First world performance 9 July 1953 at the Palais des Beaux Arts,
Brussels, during the concluding Gala Concert of the International
Conference on the Role and Place of Music in the Education of Youth
and Adults.)
I. CHORUS (Ite, angel; veloces, after Isaiah 18)Away, away, wings, moving swiftly, away, angels, go to those people
engulfed and torn and discouraged in a malevolent hibernation-awayy
hasten!-with their longings and their tortures-away, hasten!-to
the groans, suppressed, forlorn, the wailing laments of humankind
surging up from hideous depths. And suck from their lips, while it is
night, mouth on mouth, the faint whisper of their breath and bring it
here to me, the whisper, the whisper of their breath-away, hasten!-
and bring it here to me!
- CHORUS
I was presented some bitter bread to eat.
It has to be chewed with persistence to the very end.
And the wine they brought and offered me for drink-
[will you join?
Come here, let me suggest that you taste it with me, that
[we may together frankly share a bit of this meal.
This wine is inebriating, comrades, a wine profound.
It is distilled from boiling blood and from tears aptlyThey, by tomorrow, will be wrenching my soul from
Since already they took my body, why not my soul?
And they will put another in its place.
And tomorrow is the operation
My feet are tied to the ground, so that it be moreWait one more day when it’ll be your own turn.[fermented.[my flesh.[convenient.