1988

Beginning My Studies

Composed by Lee Hoiby
Text by Walt Whitman

I Was There: Five Poems of Walt Whitman Song Collection

"Beginning My Studies" is the first song in Lee Hoiby's song cycle I Was There: Five Poems of Walt Whitman of 1988. The song cycle is for baritone and piano.

Text

Beginning My Studies
by Walt Whitman

Beginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,
The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,
The first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.