An American Requiem​

The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world’s altar-stairs
That slope thro’ darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.


​Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Section LV

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An American Requiem was commissioned by Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. It was premiered on September 11, 2016 by Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh and Voces Solis at First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh.

Free digital booklet.

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