I caught a Ted webcast of Natalie Merchant's performance to promote her new album, her first album after six to seven years. It was well worth the wait, if the 27-minute webcast was any indicator. Her album was very different from her previous albums; in this new album, she set other people's poetry to music.
One of the poems that she sang in the Ted webcast moved me a lot. It was a poem by a Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins, who had written it to explain death to a young child. Natalie Merchant sings the song in the 16th minute of the Ted webcast. I found myself listening to it over and over again.
Indeed, how music and words move the heart.
Spring and Fall: to a young child
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrows spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrows spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
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