Poems of Love and The Rain by Ned Rorem (selections)

Prologue: from "The Rain" -- 0:30
Stop All The Clocks -- 1:42
in the rain -- 4:50
Interlude -- 5:45
in the rain -- 9:05
Stop All The Clocks -- 10:50
Epilogue: from "The Rain" -- 12:40

Prologue/Epilogue: from "The Rain"
by Donald Windham

Everywhere, the impossible
is happening:
two things, the rain
and the landscape,
are occupying the same place
at the same time.

Stop All The Clocks
by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks,
cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking
with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and
with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin,
let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle
moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message
He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks
of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen
wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South,
my East and West,
My working week
and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight,
my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever:
I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now:
put out every one;
Pack up the moon
and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean
and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come
to any good.

in the rain
by e.e. cummings

in the rain—
darkness, the sunset
being sheathed i sit and
think of you

the holy
city which is your face
your little cheeks the streets of smiles

your eyes half-
thrush
half-angel and your drowsy
lips where float flowers of kiss

and
there is the sweet shy pirouette
your hair
and then

your dancesong
soul. rarely-beloved
a single star is
uttered,and i

think
of you

Interlude
by Theodore Roethke

The element of air was out of hand.
The rush of wind ripped off the tender leaves
And flung them in confusion on the land.
We waited for the first rain in the eaves.

The chaos grew as hour by hour the light
Decreased beneath an undivided sky.
Our pupils widened with unnatural night,
But still the road and dusty field kept dry.

The rain stayed in its cloud; full dark came near;
The wind lay motionless in the long grass.
The veins within our hands betrayed our fear.
What we had hoped for had not come to pass.