Day Is Spent – Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett

Text by: Charles Anthony Silvestri

Instrumentation: SATB

Duration: Approx. 2 minutes

Date Written:  2024

Composer’s note: Last year, I set a text that turned out not to be available for use. Award-winning poet and lyricist Tony Silvestri graciously consented to write a replacement text, and came up with this lovely meditation that invites contemplation of the hours between sunset and dawn. The melody is based in F Lydian; the first verse is sung in unison by sopranos and altos. The tenors and basses take the melody for the second verse, enhanced by the women’s two-part descant. The final verse is in four-part harmony, and strays momentarily to A major before returning to its F Lydian home.

text

DAY IS SPENT

Day is spent; the scent of jasmine

hangs o’er the vale.

Shadows long; a song begins--

the nightingale.

Sun of splendor, at thy setting,

Daylight burdens all forgetting;

Banish sorrow and regretting

‘neath evening’s veil.

Glows the fire, its light inspiring

spirits to mend,

Fill our hearts ere retiring,

sweet slumber send.

Silver moon through darkness gliding,

Find the pain that we are hiding,

Grant that we in dreams abiding

seek to transcend.

Comes the morn; reborn in waking

rises the sun.

Bright new day of our own making

now has begun.

May our minds be ever learning;

May our hearts be ever yearning;

May our souls be ever turning,

turning to You.

Charles Anthony Silvestri