for unaccompanied mixed chorus.
Poem: Susan Cooper
Duration: 3 min 45 sec
A song for the Winter solstice.
A winner of the Amadeus Choir Seasonal Song Competition.
A finalist in the Ithaca College Choral Composition Contest
Here is a recording by the Amadeus Choir under Lydia Adams.
Here is a link to a score.
Nights grew long and snow came falling,
Deep and bitter cold it lay;
Till the year was dark and dying,
Frozen on the shortest day.
Sudden fires leapt on the hillsides
Flaring in the starless night;
High above them voices singing,
Singing, calling back the light.
All night long we sang, beseeching
Time to turn its wheel around
Wakening the green abundance
Buried in the sleeping ground.
When the daybreak came next morning
Heralding the turning year,
Joy came flooding bright as sunlight,
Freeing every heart from fear.
So we sing that in this season
Hope may drive despair away,
New life springing out of darkness
Born again this shortest day.