The Bard Weeps

for vocal sextet, SATTBB
duration: 6 minutes
completed Fall 2023, Baltimore, MD

Recording Engineer: Aaron Zimmer
Performers: Kayleigh Sprouse, Emma Tucker, Opal Clyburn-Miller, Will Martin, Christian Schmidt, T.J. Callahan

Text adapted from William Shakespeare, Sonnet 64:

The bard weeps
as he turns his downcast eyes
to the shore
and says:

I have seen by Time's fell hand de-fac'd
the outworn buried age
lofty towers
I see downras'd

When I see the ocean gain
advantage on the shore
The kingdom of the shore

This thought is
This thought is as
This thought is as death

which cannot choose
But weep
But weep to have that which it fears to lose