Beside the ungathered rice he lay (Samuel Coleridge-Taylor)

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• (Posted 2023-10-05)  CPDL #76055:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-10-05).   Score information: Letter, 40 pages, 1.66 MB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: Beside the ungathered rice he lay
Composer: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Lyricist: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: Piano

First published: 1904 Breitkopf & Härtel
Description: 

Original text and translations

English text

Beside the ungathered rice He lay,
His sickle in his hand;
His breast was bare, his matted hair
Was buried in the sand.
Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,
He saw his native land.

Wide through the landscape of his dreams
The lordly Niger flowed;
Beneath the palm-trees on the plain
Once more a king he strode;
And heard the tinkling caravans
Descend the mountain-road.

He saw once more his dark-eyed queen
Among her children stand;
They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,
They held him by the hand!—
A tear burst from the sleeper’s lids
And fell into the sand.

And then at furious speed he rode
Along the Niger’s bank;
His bridle-reins were golden chains,
And, with a martial clank,
At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel
Smiting his stallion’s flank.

Before him, like a blood-red flag,
The bright flamingoes flew:
From morn till night he follow’d their flight,
O’er plains where the tamarind grew,
Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,
And the ocean rose to view.

At night he heard the lion roar,
And the hyena scream,
And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds
Beside some hidden stream;
And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,
Through the triumph, of his dream.

The forests, with their myriad tongues,
Shouted of liberty;
And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,
With a voice so wild and free,
That he started in his sleep and smiled
At their tempestuous glee.

He did not feel the driver’s whip,
Nor the burning heat of day;
For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,
And his lifeless body lay
A worn-out fetter, that the soul
Had broken and thrown away!