Setting of a poem by George MacDonald, from 'Diary of an Old Soul'

» highest in charts:   # 108   (30,731 songs currently listed in Classical)
» highest in sub-genre:   # 31   (6,841 songs currently listed in Classical > Contemporary)

Written and premiered for offertory at Holy Trinity Church Downtown, Chicago. June 8, 2008.

I see a little child whose eager hands
Search the thick stream that drains the crowded street
For possible things hid in its current slow.
Near by, behind him, a great palace stands,
Where kings might welcome nobles to their feet.
Soft sounds, sweet scents, fair sights there only go—
There the child's father lives, but the child does not know.

On, eager, hungry, busy-seeking child,
Rise up, turn round, run in, run up the stair.
Far in a chamber from rude noise exiled,
Thy father sits, pondering how thou dost fare.
The mighty man will clasp thee to his breast:
Will kiss thee, stroke the tangles of thy hair,
And lap thee warm in fold on fold of lovely rest.

Lord, loosen in me the hold of visible things;
Help me to walk by faith and not by sight;
I would, through thickest veils and coverings,
See into the chambers of the living light.
Lord, in the land of things that swell and seem,
Help me to walk by the other light supreme,
Which shows thy facts behind man's vaguely hinting dream.

--George MacDonald, 1824-1905 From "Diary of an Old Soul"