Childhood Will Never Die
November 28, 2017
THE Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds’ choral work “Only in Sleep,” based on a poem by Sara Teasdale, may bring to mind the friends who live in your heart as children forever.
It may also reassure you that somewhere in the world, music is still music. This is performed by the Choir of Trinity College in its Anglican chapel at Cambridge.
ONLY IN SLEEP
Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.
Only in sleep Time is forgotten –
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.
The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild –
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?
