Envelope contains
1 choral/orchestral score (facsimile – used by PRH)
1 percussion score (facsimile)
1 tom-tom/bass drum score (manuscript)
1 orchestral score (manuscript – incomplete)
1 harp score (facsimile)
1 choral/orchestral score (facsimile – reader copy)
4 choral/orchestral scores (facsimile – reductions)
2 choral/orchestra scores (facimiles)
See Night Music: 1. Silent Departure for detailed notes.
Lyrics
Reader then Choir:
Out of the earth to rest or range
perpetual in perpetual change
The unknown passing through the strange
Water and saltness held together
to tread the duest and stand the weather
and plow the field and stretch the tether.
To pass the wine cup and be witty
Water the sands and build the city.
Slaughter like devils and have pity
be red with rage and pale with lust
make beauty come, make peace, make trust,
Water and saltness mixed with dust
Fashion an altar for a Rood,
defile a continent with blood
and watch a brother starve for food
Brood upon beauty, ‘till the grave of beauty
with the Holy Face brings peace into that bitter place
Fasten to lover or to friend
the heart-break at the end of death
that cannot mend
Down in the earth in dark alone
a mockery of ghost in bone
the strangeness passing the unknown
Since moons decay and suns arise
how else should this life of mine?
Water and saltness are not wine
but in the darkest hour of night
even the foxes peer for sight
the deathless spirit feels the light
so in this water mixed with dust
the deathless spirit yearns to trust
that death will change because it must.
And change us all who pass like foam
change ever too we have no home
and gathering as we stray,
a sense of life so lovely and intense—
it lingers when we wander hence.
That those who follow feel behind their backs,
when all before is bline, our joy,
a rampart to the mind.
