Dorset composer - Rick Birley
  • HOME [and contact form]
    • Rick Birley biography
  • Compositions [Orchestral works]
    • Symphony ["little bird"]
    • Bishops & Clerks
    • Latin Primer
    • Maverick
    • Christmas Exultation
    • Chamber Symphony in Five Movements
    • Variations on a Plainsong
    • Movement for String Orchestra "magnas inter opes inops"
    • A Little English Folksong Suite/ The Ploughboy
    • English Folksong Suite No.2
    • Chansons de France
    • Marat/Sade Suite >
      • Marat/Sade notes
    • Hebrew Songs of Love, Faith & Survival
    • Call to Remembrance - a meditation on The Last Post
    • Sar-planina - a Macedonian folksong
    • Nursery Rhymes Kaleidoscope
    • Spanish Folksongs
    • Olympian Glories
    • Piano Concerto
    • the Cuckoo - 'cello & chamber orchestra
    • A Dorset Rhapsody
    • Eight Orchestral Studies
    • Romney Facets
    • Lord of the Dance
    • Sea Song
    • Greensleeves
    • Blaydon Races
  • Compositions [Choral]
    • Compositions [choral/orch] - SACRED >
      • Advent Carol Succession >
        • Advent Carol Succession notes
      • Songs of Time
    • Compositions [Choral/Orch] - SECULAR >
      • Fern Hill
      • Universal Truth
      • The Jackdaw of Rheims
      • Nine Welsh Folksong Arrangements
    • Compositions [Choral a capella SACRED] >
      • Three Motets
      • Carol: I Sing of a Maiden
      • Gaudete, gaudete!
    • Compositions [Choral a capella SECULAR] >
      • Three Hardy Settings for unaccompanied choir
      • The Cuckoo
      • Dance to your Daddy
      • Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill
      • The Willow Song
      • In Vernali Tempore
      • My Love in her Attire
  • Compositions [Vocal]
    • Compositions [Vocal] SECULAR >
      • Edges
      • Seven Folksong Ballads
      • Hardy Songs
    • Compositions [vocal] SACRED >
      • The Virgin's Song
  • Compositions [chamber/instrumental]
    • Austerity
    • Your Presence [piano/violin]
    • Quintet "magnas inter opes inops"
    • Five Folksong Arrangements (for the Crucible)
    • Latin Primer [Septet]
    • Latin Primer [violin/piano]
    • Past Tense
    • in memoriam G B
    • Variations on a Plainsong - piano transcription
    • Variations on a Plainsong - original version for solo clarinet
    • March Wind
    • Preludes [piano]
    • Carol Preludes [piano]
    • Marat/Sade Suite [2-piano transcription]
    • Piano Sonata
    • Folksong Dance Suite for Cello & Piano
    • Dance to Your Daddy
    • Salutation Carol Prelude [piano]
    • Grazioso (guitar solo)
    • Dorset Suite (guitar duo)
    • Drink Old England Dry: a Folksong Frolic for Busy Fingers
    • Sonatina for Violin & Piano [1979]
    • Donegal - a choral fantasy transcribed for piano
    • The Phoenix
  • Compositions [jazz/light]
    • Funked-up Bach
    • Basement Jazz
    • Too Darn Hot
  • A Dorset Affair
  • Compositions [Pastiche]
    • La Ronde
    • Zartom: Symphony
    • Hornby: Exultate Jubilate
  • The case for a National Rehearsal Orchestra for New Music
  • ARTWORK
    • Rogues gallery....
    • Pembrokeshire scenes i
    • Pembrokeshire scenes ii
    • Durham 'prints'
    • Picture Dorchester....
    • Italy October 2010
    • Paris
    • Prague
    • Miscellaneous
  • Poems
    • We English - a historical rhyme
  • Rick Birley Blog
  • Miscellaneous
    • Maverick
    • Hobie Adventure Island >
      • Maiden Voyage 12.iii.11
  • Compositions [Miscellaneous]
    • Music Hall for Westfield
    • May 24th 2014 Orchestral Concert

Index

new year carol



and the waters singing shall wet the stage
on which we tread
on which we lately tread
there on storied pebbles fresh immersed

 washed on riverbed
washed clean on riverbed

 reflecting slippery time whose yellowed age
when done and said
when all done and said
makes its exit finally offstage
 
no curtain call
no scene change
no props to rearrange
no sounds at all
 
save rippled water coruscating over shallow stones
and new laid bones burbling their sweetest tones
to gently soothe our hapless quicklimed yearning
 
its flowing thread
intently binds our weak and helpless rage
now stranded dry – such parched and brittle learning
entirely unrehearsed 
 
its calm and flowing thread
intently weaves a new and endless age
entirely sans script unrehearsed
 
when we are dead
 
we all are singing unversed
songs of pebble-washed time
which will become immersed
one unsuspecting day
in lime
or clay
over which will run the ever running stream
smoothing out the pain
smoothing forever the awful pain
 
singing softly of a pebbled dream 
 
our new year carol strains the air
in sad lament
as the melody of one so fair
is spent
 
 
19.i.10

 



 

 
(c) 2017 Rick Birley
✕