Text: Sara Astle Carruth (b.1986)
Language: English
Ensemble: SATB (div.)
Accompaniment: a capella
Genre: Secular
Duration: 3.0 minutes
Page Count: 10
Catalog Number: NWC-200
Available from J. W. Pepper.
Note:
Spring is an a cappella setting of an original poem by Sara Astle Carruth, poet and member of the University of Utah Singers who commissioned this setting. The six rhyming strophes of the poem celebrate the passing of winter, warm sunlight, the awakening and blossoming of spring, and the renewal of dreams. The music is joyful and optimistic, predominantly homophonic, with moments of musing and daydreaming. Some occasional divisi in all parts.
Text:
I feel the glow of spring transcend
The gloomy dim of winter’s heart.
New life begins to make amends
Of every cold and shattered part.
And bud by bud, blossoms anew
The love that fled grief’s bitter frost,
While sunlight’s hope streams softly through
Kindling the soul that once was lost.
Awakened from this seasoned sleep,
How bright the world now seems to be
Oh, to grow beyond the chill so deep
I too embrace the dawn, alive and free.
Though storming clouds and rains may come
The roots of spring stand steady still
Now grounded in the reigning sun
While reaching for a higher will.
I feel the glow of spring’s new song
Stir my senses toward the light
‘Til yearning turns to pleasure strong,
And dormant dreams take boundless flight.
To thrive despite the winters past;
To learn what all the seasons know;
I face the ray of change so vast,
To live, and ever more to grow.
Sara Astle Carruth
Sara Astle Carruth, Nancy Wertsch, Brady Allred