On My First Son (from Epigrams, Epitaphs) – Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett

Text by:  Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford (1717-1797)

Instrumentation: SATB, 4-hand piano

Duration: c 3:30

Date Written:  1987

Composer’s note: Epigrams, Epitaphs was commissioned in 1986 by the Grand Rapids [MN] Area Community Chorus, which wanted a new work for a program that also included the Liebeslieder Waltzes. This was the impetus for the four-hand piano accompaniment as well as the inspiration for the fourth song, stylistically an homage to Brahms. Looking for texts, I found Ben Jonson’s “On My First Son” and fell in love with it. This poem sets the tone for the entire work; all of the texts deal in some way with death (of beauty, of the poet, of two dickey-birds), thus the occasional use of the piano as a great tolling bell. The first three poems are also brief enough to be epigrams, hence the title.

One of Ben Jonson’s most moving epigrams, “On My First Son” is set simply and solemnly, with deep-toned bells in the background. The mixed meters and pauses mirror the distracted disorientation of grief.

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text

On My First Son
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy,
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father, now. For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon ‘scap’d world’s, and flesh’s rage,
And if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask’d, say here doth lie
Ben. Jonson his best piece of poetry.
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.
Ben Jonson (1572-1637)