Before I could start learning songs out of the Ned Rorem collection I bought, I wanted to put them in chronological order of when they were composed. I scoured various sites online to find the years of composition for each song. I put them in order and numbered them in the index of my book. Number one was to be “Absalom.” At first glance, I saw a note at the very bottom of the last page: “New York, December 1946.” This would have saved me a lot of trouble if I had known!
I re-ordered my songs because of the more specific dates, and my new number one is “On a Singing Girl,” composed April29, 1946 at 9:00 p.m. The poem is by Elinor Wylie who had rewritten several epigrams from John William Mackail’s collection, Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology. This poem, in its original form in the anthology reads:
XLII
On a Singing-Girl
Author Unknown
Blue-eyed Musa, the sweet-voiced nightingale, suddenly this little grave holds voiceless, and she lies like a stone who was so accomplished and so famous; fair Musa, be this dust light over thee.
Elinor Wylie’s version (and the one that inspired Ned) reads:
“On a Singing Girl”
Musa of the sea-blue eyes,
Silver nightingale alone in a little coffin lies; a stone beneath a stone.
She, whose song we loved the best,
Is voiceless in a sudden Night:
On your light limbs,
O loveliest,
May the dust be light!
I don’t know who Musa was, but considering the title, I’m assuming she is pretty anonymous. I suppose, the anonymity makes the poem a little sadder. The few people who knew her were the only ones who were ever able to appreciate her voice. At least she lives on in the epigram and re-written poem.
This seems to be quite a gem of a little song at only one page in length (as are many of Ned’s songs). The song is dedicated to Ned’s friend Daniel Pinkham, another American composer.
Tags: Absalom, Daniel Pinkham, Elinor Wylie, epigrams, John Mackail, Ned Rorem, On a Singing Girl, Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology
