Knoxville: Summer of 1915 lyrics

It has become that time of evening

when people sit on their porches

Rocking gently and talking gently

And watching the street

And the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees

of birds' hung havens, hangars

People go by, things go by

A horse, drawing a buggy

breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt

A loud auto, a quiet auto

People in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling

switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually

the taste hovering over them

of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard, and starched milk

The image upon them of lovers and horsemen

squaring with clowns in hueless amber

A streetcar raising its iron moan

Stopping, belling, and starting, stertorous

Rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan

And swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past

The bleak spark crackling and cursing above it

Like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks

The iron whine rises on rising speed

Still risen, faints, halts

The faint stinging bell, rises again, still fainter

fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone, forgotten

Now is the night one blue dew

Now is the night one blue dew

My father has drained, he has coiled the hose

Low in the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes

Parents on porches, rock and rock

From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces

The dry and exalted noise of the locusts

from all the air at once enchants my eardrums

On the rough wet grass of the back yard

my father and mother have spread quilts

We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt

and I too am lying there

They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet

of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all

The stars are wide and alive

They seem each like a smile of great sweetness

and they seem very near

All my people are larger bodies than mine

with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds

One is an artist, he is living at home

One is a musician, she is living at home

One is my mother who is good to me

One is my father who is good to me

By some chance, here they are, all on this earth

And who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth

Lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening

among the sounds of the night

May God bless my people

My uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father

Oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble

and in the hour of their taking away

After a little I am taken in and put to bed

Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her

And those receive me, who quietly treat me

as one familiar and well-beloved in that home

but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever

but will not ever tell me who I am

• Artist:Samuel Barber