Prayer for a New Mother

Prayer for a New Mother

Originally written for SATB Choir, unaccompanied
Adapted for solo soprano, solo violin, strings, and harp
Also adapted for Soprano, violin, and Piano

Duration: 4’30

In loving memory of John R. “Jack” Larson
Commissioned for the Choir of Trinity-by-the-Cove Episcopal Church, Naples, Florida Stephen L. Furches, Organist-Choirmaster Advent 1997

Prayer for a New Mother
Text by: Dorothy Parker
Musical setting by James M. Stephenson

The things she knew, let her forget again
The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold
The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men Piling their gifts of foreign gold.
Let her have laughter with her little one;
Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing, Grant her the right to whisper to her son
The foolish names one dare not call a king. Keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd, The smell of rough-cut wood, the trail of red, The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud That wraps the strange new body of the dead. Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go
And boast his pretty words and ways, and plan The proud and happy years that they shall know Together, when her son is grown a man.
[Repeat:]
The things she knew, let her forget again; forget again.