Post 507) from Xanga

507) Friday, glorious Friday...

Last night at choir we rehearsed a piece by Randall Thompson the choral conductor, setting the text of a Robert Frost poem, "Choose Something Like a Star." Here's the poem:

    O Star (the fairest one in sight),
    We grant your loftiness the right
    To some obscurity of cloud-
    It will not do to say of night,
    Since dark is what brings out your light.
    Some mystery becomes the proud.
    But to be wholly taciturn
    In your reserve is not allowed.
    Say something to us we can learn
    By heart and when alone repeat.
    Say something! And it says, 'I burn.'
    But say with what degree of heat.
    Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
    Use language we can comprehend.
    Tell us what elements you blend.
    It gives us strangely little aid,
    But does tell something in the end
    And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
    Not even stooping from its sphere,
    It asks a little of us here.
    It asks of us a certain height,
    So when at times the mob is swayed
    To carry praise or blame too far,
    We may choose something like a star
    To stay our minds on and be staid.