(for scores, contact me here). This is a very intense, poignant poem. It is my hope that if you have lost a loved one, will immediately find comfort in the intensity and beauty of the words. This was a performance a few years at Baylor University with The Texas Voices, conducted by Alan Dyer. The only accompanying instrument is a cello. Cellist Chris Martin did a wonderful job at the premier. Text by Christina Rossetti. See below.
A Better Resurrection
BY CHRISTINA ROSETTI
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm’d with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish’d thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
Carlos Colón 