Asleep - Crawford, James

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"Asleep is the fifth of a collection of seven songs based upon the poems of Wilfred Owen. It may serve as part of a Remembrance Day event, or a recital or competition."

◈ Genre → Art songs

♯ Key F major

⁄ Time Signature 4/4

♬ Voicing → S, T

◆ Difficulty

Intermediate

↕ Range B0 – C7

¶ Language → English

Measures 47

Texture mixed texture

Parts 3

Instruments Piano

Pages 6

CPDL # 56501

Editor James Crawford

Posted 2020-01-02

License Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

♫Pitch Ranges

Soprano

B3 – A5

Piano

B0 – G-4

¶Lyrics / Text

Under his helmet, up against his pack, After so many days of work and waking, Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back. There, in the happy no time of his sleeping, Death took him by the heart. There heaved a quaking Of the aborted life within him leaping, Then chest and sleepy arms once more fell slack. And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping from the intruding lead,like ants on track. Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking Of great wings, and the thoughts that hung the stars, High-pillowed on calm pillows of God's making, Above these clouds, these rains, these sleets of lead, And these winds' scimitars, - Or whether yet his thin and sodden head Confuses more and more with the low mould, His hair being one with the grey grass Of finished fields, and wire-scrags rusty-old, Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass! He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold, Than we who wake, and waking say Alas!