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Compiled and Continually Updated by
Professors Stephen Spinelli and Tamara Acosta
ONEcomposer takes you beyond standard liner notes, and brings you closer to the people, poets, materials, and archival artifacts that brought Beyond the Years to life. This page will continue to grow as the research continues, and ONEcomposer is committed to creating access for performers and scholars. All editions created for this recording project will be published this Fall. For inquiries, please email info@onecomposer.org.
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Desire (Orma Jean Surbey)
Orma Jean Surbey was born in Canada, and spent her early life in Flint, MI, and Akron, OH. She lost her eyesight at age three during a seizure brought on by whooping cough. Her family moved to Miami, FL, in 1914. Though she never received a formal education, she won the South Florida Poetry Festival, and her works were featured in McCall’s, The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, and Saturday Review. She considered it the poet’s duty to “sense things beyond commonplace, and help others stretch their consciousness.” “Desire” was printed in the February 1947 issue of McCall’s, embedded within a short story called “Walk, Don’t Run,” by Isabella Holt. Surbey’s obituary, published on November 8, 1967, cites that she died at age 71 with no listed survivors.
I want life, the whole of it,
Here in my hand,
The brimming bowl of it
To drink as I stand;
Draining the flower of it
Acid or sweet,
To know one hour of it
Life, or defeat.
Bright be the Place (Lord Byron)
A continent and nearly a century separate Lord Byron from the rest of the poets represented on this album. Born in 1788, George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron) was a European nobleman. He was a more complex figure than the historical record may recall. He was one of the first celebrity writers, and was attracted to both men and women. Byron is known to have slept with his half sister, which may be why his editor opted to burn his memoirs. Despite his geographic and chronological separation from the other poets featured on this album, Price’s settings present his poetry as timeless. Byron died on April 19, 1824.
Bright be the place of thy soul!
No lovelier spirit than thine
E’er burst from its mortal control
In the orbs of the blessed to shine.
On earth thou wert all but divine,
As thy soul shall immortally be;
And our sorrow may cease to repine,
When we know that thy God is with thee.
Light be the turf of thy tomb!
May its verdure like emeralds be:
There should not be the shadow of gloom
In aught that reminds us of thee.
Young flowers and an evergreen tree
May spring from the spot of thy rest:
But nor cypress nor yew let us see;
For why should we mourn for the blest?
(italicized stanzas not set by Price)
Ships that Pass in the Night (Paul Laurence Dunbar)
Paul Laurence Dunbar was born on June 27, 1872, in Ohio to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky prior to the Civil War. He was one of the first Black writers to gain international attention and, in addition to his poetry, he was known for his short stories, novels, and as a musical comedy lyricist. At only 18 years old, Dunbar created a weekly African-American newspaper which was printed by friends and classmates, Orville and Wilbur Wright. “Ships that Pass in the Night” was printed in Countee Cullen’s Caroling Dusk, an anthology of Harlem Renaissance poetry that was originally published in 1927. Caroling Dusk became an important resource for Black creatives of the Harlem Renaissance, and served almost as a libretto for composers of the time. Dunbar was no stranger to collaborations with musicians, and he famously toured with the virtuoso violinist-composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. At present, this project has identified approximately 150 songs by Florence Price. Of those, 26 are settings of poetry by Dunbar, making him the most frequently set poet among her song repertory. Dunbar died from tuberculosis on February 9, 1906, at the young age of 33.
Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing;
I look far out into the pregnant night,
Where I can hear a solemn booming gun
And catch the gleaming of a random light,
That tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing.
My tearful eyes my soul’s deep hurt are glassing;
For I would hail and check that ship of ships.
I stretch my hands imploring, cry aloud,
My voice falls dead a foot from mine own lips
And but its ghost doth reach that vessel, passing, passing.
O Earth, O Sky, O Ocean, both surpassing,
O heart of mine, O soul that dreads the dark!
Is there no hope for me? Is there no way
That I may sight and check that speeding bark
Which out of sight and sound is passing, passing?
Pittance (Don Vincent Gray)
Don Vincent Gray was born on April 6, 1912, in Milton Junction, WI. He attended Milton High School and Milton College, and married his wife, Caroline, in 1933. Though his professional life would lead him to a position as a tool and die maker for the Parker Pen Company, he was also a skilled poet. In 1945, Gray published a pamphlet of his poems titled With Eyes Half-Closed. Inside, there is an inscription that reads, “To the many friends who have urged and helped me, and to my wife, Caroline, without whose comradeship and inspiration nothing would be quite worthwhile.” The pamphlet contains both poems that are included on this album, as well as a third, titled “Free.” Gray died on March 28, 1991, in Dover, DE.
We have enough the gale that blusters at the door
And whips up froth along the shore is lost on us
The walls are thin, but warm within and held against the dim
We have enough though shelves be bare of things to eat,
The stove is cheery? With the heat which fills the house.
The love of brother cradles here and love is life and life is dear
We have enough.
The Sum (Dunbar)
A little dreaming by the way,
A little toiling day by day;
A little pain, a little strife,
A little joy, and that is life.
A little short-lived summer’s morn,
When joy seems all so newly born,
When one day’s sky is blue above,
And one bird sings,–and that is love.
A little sickening of the years,
The tribute of a few hot tears
Two folded hands, the failing breath,
And peace at last,–and that is death.
Just dreaming, loving, dying, so,
The actors in the drama go–
A flitting picture on the wall,
Love, Death, the themes; (and that is all) but is that all?
**Price includes parenthetical text - this is not printed in the poem
Who Grope with Love for Hands (Samuel Hoffenstein)
Born in Lithuania in 1890, Samuel Goodman Hoffenstein immigrated to Wilkes-Barre, PA, when he was four years old. A graduate of LaFayette College, Hoffenstein worked as a poet, lyricist, humorist, and later in life, a screenwriter. His work was regularly published in magazines such as The New Yorker, Harper’s, and Vanity Fair. In addition to his work on The Wizard of Oz (1939), Hoffenstein was twice nominated for Academy Awards as a contributor to the screenplays of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and Laura (1944). “Who Grope with Love for Hands” was printed three days after Hoffenstein’s death on October 6, 1947, in the last of his four books of poetry, entitled Pencil in the Air.
Who grope, with love for hands, outstretched to light,
Will break their fumbling fingers on a wall.
(Oh)* In that fierce flash of pain the wise see all -
The nested robin and the nested sea,
The silent brood-hen of Eternity,
Warbled in azure that nor speaks nor sings -
And nest their souls beneath those flightless wings.
*Price includes parenthetical text - this is not printed in the poem
There be None (Byron)
There be none of Beauty’s daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
(Is) thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean’s pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull’d winds seem dreaming:
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright charm o’er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant’s asleep:
So the spirit bows before thee;
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer’s ocean.
**Price sets “as thy sweet voice…”
Sacrament (Gray)
I watched in awe as rumbling clouds
Dropped torrents on the prostrate earth
I waited, half-afraid half-proud
To watch the miracle, the miracle of birth
I waited, I wandered in the starry dark
To let its singing bear me up;
In dewy morning calm
I held communion in a lily’s cup.
What do I care for Morning (Helene Johnson)
Helene Johnson (née Helen Johnson) was born on July 7, 1906, in Boston, MA. She was the only child of her mother, Ella Benson Johnson, and she did not know her father, George Johnson. Her maternal aunts, who played a significant role in her upbringing, resided in Oak Bluffs (Martha’s Vineyard), a popular Black resort community. Johnson’s cousin, Dorothy West, was a fiction writer. West is perhaps best known for her novel The Wedding, which was later produced by Oprah Winfrey as a mini-series, starring Halle Berry. Johnson moved with West to New York City in 1927 where, in addition to the many jobs she managed out of necessity, she solidified her impactful role as one of the pioneering voices of the Harlem Renaissance. “What do I care for Morning” was printed in Countee Cullen’s Caroling Dusk the very same year that she moved to New York. Johnson married William Warner Hubbell III in 1933, and they had a daughter in 1940. The marriage ended in divorce, and she settled in Greenwich Village for the remainder of her life. She ceased to publish her work, noting in a 1992 interview, “It’s very difficult for a poor person to be unfastened. They have to eat…” Despite her later-in-life absence from the public eye, she remained steadfast to her craft, writing a poem a day until her death on July 7, 1995. Her New York Times obituary notes that writer and longtime Fisk University Librarian Arna Bontemps once called her “the youngest of the young poets and writers who brought about the Negro Renaissance, as it was called in the 1920’s.” Johnson’s daughter, Abigail McGrath, is a sixth-generation resident of Martha’s Vineyard where she still operates writers’ retreats dedicated to the memory of her mother.
What do I care for morning,
For a shivering aspen tree,
For sun flowers and sumac
opening greedily?
What do I care for morning,
For the glare of the rising sun,
For a sparrow’s noisy prating,
For another day begun?
Give me the (beauty of) evening,
The cool consummation of night,
And the moon like a love-sick lady,
Listless and wan and white,
Give me a little valley
Huddled beside a hill,
Like a monk in a monastery,
Safe and contented and still,
Give me the white road glistening,
A strand of the pale moon’s hair,
And the tall hemlocks towering
Dark as the moon is fair.
Oh what do I care for morning,
Naked and newly born–
Night is here, yielding and tender–
What do I care for dawn!
**Price sets “give me the beautiful evening”
The Dawn's Awake (Otto Leland Bohanan)
It is believed that Otto Leland Bohanan was born in 1895 in Washington, D.C., though some sources cite his birth year as 1892. He attended Catholic University of America and Howard University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1914. Bohanan published several poems in The Crisis (The official magazine of the NAACP, edited by W.E.B. DuBois) and was offered a faculty position in the English department at Howard University. He declined, instead choosing to pursue a career in music. “The Dawn’s Awake” was published in The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), another significant collection of Harlem Renaissance poetry. The anthology was edited by James Weldon Johnson, and contains the work of over 30 Black writers, including W.E.B DuBois, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Georgia Douglas Johnson. Bohanan was a music teacher at the De Witt Clinton High School in New York City. He died on December 6, 1932.
The Dawn’s awake!
A flash of smoldering flame and fire
Ignites the East. Then, higher, higher
O’er all the sky so gray, forlorn,
The torch of gold is borne .
The Dawn’s Awake!
The dawn of a thousand dreams and thrills.
And music singing in the hills
A paean of eternal spring
Voices the new awakening.
The Dawn’s awake!
Whispers of pent up harmonies,
With the mingled fragrance of the trees;
Faint snatches of half-forgotten song–
Fathers! Torn and numb–
The boone of light we craved, awaited long,
Has come, has come!
Beyond the Years (Dunbar)
I
Beyond the years the answer lies,
Beyond where brood the grieving skies
And Night drops tears.
Where Faith rod-chastened smiles to rise
And doff its fears,
And carping Sorrow pines and dies—
Beyond the years.
II
Beyond the years the prayer for rest
Shall beat no more within the breast;
The darkness clears,
And Morn perched on the mountain's crest
Her form uprears—
The day that is to come is best,
Beyond the years.
III
Beyond the years the soul shall find
That endless peace for which it pined,
For light appears,
And to the eyes that still were blind
With blood and tears,
Their sight shall come all unconfined
Beyond the years.
Youth (Georgia Douglas Johnson)
Georgia Douglas Johnson (née Georgia Blanche Douglas Camp) was born on September 10, 1877 (or 1880), and was of African American, Native American, and European descent. She played the violin as a child and later attended Oberlin Conservatory where she studied voice. The first major publication of her poetry was in The Crisis (1916), followed closely by her first volume of poetry, Heart of a Woman (1918). W.E.B. Dubois, editor of The Crisis, is quoted saying that Johnson, “could never do a concentrated, sustained piece of work…but was liable at any time or anywhere to turn out some little thing of unusual value or beauty.”
Following her husband’s appointment to the administration of President William Taft, the family moved to Washington, D.C.. Johnson became an integral part of the artistic community in D.C., hosting “S Street Salons,” weekly gatherings at her home intended to bring together Black artists and inspire creativity. She remained an active part of the Washington creative community throughout her life. “Youth” was published in The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), and her final book of poetry was published in 1962, just four years before her death on May 15, 1966.
The dew is on the grasses, dear,
The blush is on the rose
And swift across our dial-youth,
A shifting shadow goes.
The primrose moments, lush with bliss.
Exhale and fade away
Life may renew the Autumn time,
But nevermore the May!
Winter Idyl (David Morton)
David Morton was born on February 21, 1886, in Elkton, KY. He graduated from Vanderbilt University and began his career as a newspaper reporter for the Louisville Evening Post. He later gained employment with the Associated Press and other significant outlets in Louisville and in New York City. Morton became an educator in 1915, and he would remain an educator until his death. He taught at the Louisville Boys’s School from 1915 to 1918, and taught high school in Morristown, NJ, from 1918 to 1924. He then became an assistant professor of English at Amherst College in Amherst, MA, where he was a colleague of Robert Frost. Morton was promoted to full professorship in 1926, and would remain in his faculty role until 1945, at which point he became poet-in-residence at Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, MA. In the early 1950’s, he accepted a faculty position at the overseas branch of American International College in the Azores. Due to declining health, he returned to New Jersey in 1957, and passed away on June 13 of that same year.
The dry-lipped grass curls back
And bares the pitted stones,
And the tree, in its new lack,
Bares, now, its angular bones.
Man looks – and looks away
From earth to a bleak sky,
Where, high above the day,
Where high above the sky
The last geese, going by,
Pass the horizon’s rim;
And man, remembering where
A door will welcome him,
Turns in the darkening air,
And takes him there.
Little Things (James Stephens)
Renowned poet and novelist James Stephens was born in 1880 in Dublin. His 1918 translations of Antoine Raftery’s Gaelic poetry, Reincarnations, were famously set to music by composer Samuel Barber. “Little Things” was privately printed in a limited edition collection of six of Stephens’ poems in 1924 and again in Collected Poems of James Stephens (1926). “Little Things” was one of Stephens’ most well-known poems. In June, 1930, Fitzhugh L. Minnegerode wrote in The New York Times of Stephens:
"This Irishman is, indeed, a strange mixture. For individuality he stands alone. In his philosophy and thought he has borrowed from none. In his style, whether prose or verse, no influence can be traced. He is as fantastic as a firefly, as gay as a butterfly and as sober as a tortoise. He is the dreamer and dreamed of, the substance of character and the shadow of make-believe. Yet he can change from substance to shadow in the twinkling of an eyelash."
Stephens moved to London in 1925, where he worked as a broadcaster for the BBC and became close friends with author James Joyce. He remained in London for the rest of his life. Stephens died on December 26, 1950.
Little things that run and quail
and die in silence and despair;
Little things that fight and fail
And fall on earth and sea and air;
All trapped and frightened little things,
The mouse, the coney, hear our prayer,
As we forgive those done to us,
The lamb, the linnet, and the hare,
Forgive us all our tresspasses
Little creatures everywhere.
Your Leafy Voice (Marion Doyle)
Marion Doyle was born on October 16, 1898, in Lambertville, PA. Known as the “Poet Laureate of Somerset County,” she won a number of awards for her poems, which were published in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, McCall’s, The Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, and other periodical outlets. Her nature-poem award at the Chattanooga Writers’ Contest was reported in the New York Times (January 25, 1933), where she is cited as a resident of Hooversville, PA. Doyle died on June 23, 1974, at the Memorial Hospital in Johnstown, PA. Her obituary, published in The Johnstown Tribune notes that she began writing poetry in high school, and that more than 2,000 of her articles, short stories, poems, and verses were published during her lifetime.
Pittance (Don Vincent Gray)
Don Vincent Gray was born on April 6, 1912, in Milton Junction, WI. He attended Milton High School and Milton College, and married his wife, Caroline, in 1933. Though his professional life would lead him to a position as a tool and die maker for the Parker Pen Company, he was also a skilled poet. In 1945, Gray published a pamphlet of his poems titled With Eyes Half-Closed. Inside, there is an inscription that reads, “To the many friends who have urged and helped me, and to my wife, Caroline, without whose comradeship and inspiration nothing would be quite worthwhile.” The pamphlet contains both poems that are included on this album, as well as a third, titled “Free.” Gray died on March 28, 1991, in Dover, DE.
May I who so loved woodlands,
(When)* my body goes back to nourish grasses,
The nettle and rose,
Find your hand outstretched to guide
My bewildered spirit back,
Down the path of the wind,
And the blinding zodiac,
To some wooded hillside slope
Such as now I see,
And crying in your leafy voice,
Open sesame!
Bid my homing spirit
Welcome to a tree.
*Price sets this word as “Where"
From The New York Times (Wednesday, Feb. 25, 1933)
Spring (Florence Price)
Throughout her life and career, Florence Price demonstrated a profound connection to text. She wrote the poetry for several of her songs and also for her first major orchestral work, with chorus, Song of Hope (1930). “Spring” is the earliest of the songs contained on this album; the cover page of her manuscript includes an inscription that reads, "about 1913,” at which time the composer was just 26 years of age.
There are promise and pleasure and hope in the spring,
That beckon and reckon the future, I know.
The bud and the bee, swaying low on the lea;
The dove coming late to his nesting mate.
In a dream of ecstasy.
There are laughter and magic and joy in the spring,
That capture, enrapture my heart, I know.
A lilt on the breeze, that is toss’d by the trees,
Which doth for me weave like a thrush at eve
A song of ecstasy.
Ah! There are madness and gladness and nothing of sadness.
That will me and thrill me and fill me, I know.
Life and its weal are to give and to feel
The soul that can ache, the heart that can break
With a pain of ecstasy.
We have enough the gale that blusters at the door
And whips up froth along the shore is lost on us
The walls are thin, but warm within and held against the dim
We have enough though shelves be bare of things to eat,
The stove is cheery? With the heat which fills the house.
The love of brother cradles here and love is life and life is dear
We have enough.
Pittance (Don Vincent Gray)
Don Vincent Gray was born on April 6, 1912, in Milton Junction, WI. He attended Milton High School and Milton College, and married his wife, Caroline, in 1933. Though his professional life would lead him to a position as a tool and die maker for the Parker Pen Company, he was also a skilled poet. In 1945, Gray published a pamphlet of his poems titled With Eyes Half-Closed. Inside, there is an inscription that reads, “To the many friends who have urged and helped me, and to my wife, Caroline, without whose comradeship and inspiration nothing would be quite worthwhile.” The pamphlet contains both poems that are included on this album, as well as a third, titled “Free.” Gray died on March 28, 1991, in Dover, DE.
I Remember! (Louise Charlotte Wallace)
Little is known about the life and legacy of Louise Charlotte Wallace. Wallace became acquainted with Price while both women were still living in Arkansas. Price was an early advocate for Wallace. In addition to setting at least three of her poems (“Night,” “I Remember,” and “The Crescent Moon”), she wrote to W.E.B. DuBois, who served as editor for The Crisis, on behalf of the young poet. Wallace’s poem “To a Loved One” (printed in the February 1926 edition of The Crisis) bears the following heading:
"Mrs. Florence B. Price of Little Rock, Arkansas, has discovered a promising young poet in the person of Miss Louise Wallace of Fort Smith, Arkansas. Mrs. Price writes us: 'There is no one close to encourage her. Her mother is dead...She has never been to college for she's been too busy sending all the other brothers and sisters there. This self-effacing girl shows ability, fineness of character and generosity."
We have enough the gale that blusters at the door
And whips up froth along the shore is lost on us
The walls are thin, but warm within and held against the dim
We have enough though shelves be bare of things to eat,
The stove is cheery? With the heat which fills the house.
The love of brother cradles here and love is life and life is dear
We have enough.
Wallace later moved to Tennessee, where she resided in Maryville and taught at the Hellskell School. She is cited in the Knoxville News-Sentinel as the winner of a poetry contest for her poem "World Schoolroom." The search for biographical information about Louise Wallace continues.
Never shall the sun pour light on a yellow flow’r,
But I see thy hair!
Never again September’s sky
but the blue of thine eyes returning;
Never, never the surging warmth of fire
here on my hearth-stone burning,
But I remember thee!
I remember thee and my desire!
Interim (Virginia Houston)
Virginia Houston’s work was regularly published between 1929 and 1931 in The Crisis and Opportunity, both major outlets for Black creatives of the Harlem Renaissance. Her poems also appear in Beatrice M. Murphy’s Negro Voices (1938), where an introduction to her poetry reads: “Virginia Houston lives in Cleveland, OH, where she has worked with a social agency and is now connected with the social service end of the City Police Force. Her poems have been widely published and praised.” Maureen Honey’s Shadowed Dreams: Women’s Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance (2006) highlights the unusual lack of biographical information for a published poet of some acclaim.
I am so tired
Waiting for my heart to break,
Waiting for tears to heal my soul,
For a blessed hand to melt away
The agony within me.
Aeons since you went from me
into an alien world. And still
Stranger to beauty are all my days,
My nights dark makings of libations
Where once the myrtle grew!
I could carry the weight of winter,
The glory of autumn nights and days,
But I cannot bear the spring.
And I am ill, unto death, my Beloved!
Sick with longing, sick with weeping,
Waiting for my heart to break.
Song is So Old (Hermann Hagedorn)
The son of German immigrants, American author, poet, and biographer Hermann Hagedorn was born in New York City in 1882. He is perhaps most well known for his relationship with President Theodore Roosevelt. Hagedorn graduated from Harvard University in 1907, where he first met Roosevelt. He was an English instructor at Harvard from 1909–1911, leaving this position to pursue his writing career. His friendship with Roosevelt began several years later, in 1916, and strongly influenced the arc of his career. The relationship continued throughout the life of the former president. Hagedorn was an extremely prolific writer, publishing multiple collections of poetry and a total of eight books on the life of Roosevelt, whom he held in very high regard. “Song” (which Price titles “Song is So Old”) was printed in a collection of his work: The Troop of the Guard and other poems (1909). Hagedorn died on July 27, 1964.
Song is so old,
Love is so new–
Let me be still
and kneel to you.
Let me be still
And breathe no word,
Save what my warm blood
Sings unheard.
Let my warm blood
Sing low of you–
Song is so fair,
Love is so new!