Description
Kallman Creates Publications
SSAA, piano. Duration: 3’30”
Listen
Cantala of Lawrence University, Appleton, WI; Phillip Swan conducting.
View
Composer’s Notes
The Grass So Little Has To Do is the first setting in the collection That Life Should Be! (Three Settings of American Women Poets), commissioned in 2011 by a consortium of intermediate and advanced treble choirs across the country. The individual titles are: The Grass So Little Has To Do (text by Emily Dickinson), The Wonder of It (text by Harriet Monroe), and A Birthday (text by Christina Rosetti).
THE GRASS SO LITTLE HAS TO DO
by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
The grass so little has to do, —
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,
And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;
And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine, —
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.
And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine,
As lowly spices gone to sleep,
Or amulets of pine.
And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
And dream the days away, —
The grass so little has to do,
I wish I were the hay!
