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Dickinson's Christmas Carol

by Grey Anne

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1.
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all {Hope, hope, hope is the thing w/ feathers Hope, hope, hope never stops at all} And sweetest in the gale is heard And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm {Hope, hope, hope is the thing w/ feathers Hope, hope, hope never stops at all.} I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. {Hope, hope, hope is the thing w/ feathers Hope, hope, hope never stops at all.}
2.
Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality He slowly drove, he knew no haste, and I had put away my labor, my leisure too, for his civility [It was just ourselves and immortality] We passed the school where children played their lessons scarcely done We passed the field of gazing grain We passed the setting sun Or rather, he passed us-- the air grew shivering and chill through my gown, only gossamer my tippet only tulle [as we passed the children playing at the school] We paused before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground The roof was scarcely visible the cornice but a mound Since then 'tis centuries but each feels shorter than the day that I first saw the horses' heads were toward eternity [It was just ourselves and immortality]
3.
A narrow fellow in the grass Occasionally rides; You may have met him,--did you not, His notice sudden is. The grass divides as with a comb, A spotted shaft is seen; And then it closes at your feet And opens further on. He likes a boggy acre, A floor too cool for corn. Yet when a child, and barefoot, I more than once, at morn, Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash Unbraiding in the sun,-- When, stooping to secure it, It wrinkled, and was gone. Several of nature's people I know, and they know me; I feel for them a transport Of cordiality; But never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone.
4.
A bird came down the walk: He did not know I saw; He bit an angle-worm in halves And ate the fellow, raw. And then he drank a dew From a convenient grass, And then hopped sidewise to the wall To let a beetle pass. He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all abroad,-- They looked like frightened beads, I thought; He stirred his velvet head Like one in danger; cautious, I offered him a crumb, And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer home Than oars divide the ocean, Too silver for a seam, Or butterflies, off banks of noon, Leap, splashless, as they swim.
5.
The wind began to rock the grass With threatening tunes and low,-- He flung a menace at the earth, A menace at the sky. The leaves unhooked themselves from trees And started all abroad; The dust did scoop itself like hands And throw away the road. The wagons quickened on the streets, The thunder hurried slow; The lightning showed a yellow beak, And then a livid claw. The birds put up the bars to nests, The cattle fled to barns; There came one drop of giant rain, And then, as if the hands That held the dams had parted hold, The waters wrecked the sky But overlooked my father's house, lust quartering a tree. A thought went up my mind today that I have had before but did not finish some way back I could not fix the year... nor where it went nor why it came a second time to me nor definitely what it was have I the art to say. But somewhere in my soul I know I've met the thing before It just reminded me, 'twas all then came my way no more.
6.
I went to heaven,-- 'T was a small town, Lit with a ruby, Lathed with down. Stiller than the fields At the full dew, Beautiful as pictures No man drew. with People like moths, with mechlin frames, with gossamer work And eider names. Almost contented I could be 'Mong such unique Society.

about

"Dickinson's Christmas Carol" is a concept EP that combines traditional holiday tunes with Emily Dickinson poems. This is its second annual release, with a continuing effort to make small improvements to the content and recording quality.

credits

released December 10, 2011

Performed, recorded, and adapted by Grey Anne.
Poems by Emily Dickinson.
Dedicated to the late Marilyn Lee.

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Grey Anne Portland, Oregon

Originally hailing from Anacortes, WA, Anne Adams has been a mainstay of Portland music since 2003, playing under the monikers "Per Se" and "Grey Anne," and collaborating in electronica duo "Sweater." A trailblazer of the earnest, theatrical folk era that followed ironic indie rock, she's more recently expanded her endeavors to include work on the film Coraline, dinosaur tarot and arts journalism. ... more

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