1957
Conversation
Composed by 
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem Text by 
Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop "Conversation" sets a poem of Elizabeth Bishop, composed by Rorem in Paris in 1957 and published in 1969. The song is dedicated to James Roland Holmes.
Text
Conversation
by Elizabeth Bishop
The tumult in the heart
keeps asking questions.
And then it stops and undertakes to answer
in the same tone of voice.
No one could tell the difference.
Uninnocent, these conversations start,
and then engage the senses,
only half-meaning to.
And then there is no choice,
and then there is no sense;
until a name
and all its connotation are the same.
Sheet Music
50 Collected Songs
Ned Rorem
Clouds
Love
Alleluia
The End
Chromatic Fantasy
For Susan
Orchids
Psalm 150
The Nightingale
Absalom
A Birthday
A Child Asleep in Its Own Life
Conversation
A Journey
The Land of Fear
Little Elegy
The Lordly Hudson
Nantucket
O Do Not Love Too Long
On a Little Bird
Poem for F.
The Serpent
Shelley's Vision
The Sick Wife
Spring (Hopkins)
Spring (Koch)
The Waking
What if some little pain...
While Sodom was occupied
A Glimpse
He Thinks Upon His Death
Philomel
Rain in Spring
You, the young Rainbow
Early in the Morning
Are you the new person?
Catullus: on the Burial of His Brother
Ferry me across the water
I strolled across an open field
I will always love you
Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
Look down, fair moon
Love in a Life
On a Singing Girl
Sometimes with one I love
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Such beauty as hurts to behold
That shadow, my likeness
To a Young Girl
Visits to St. Elizabeths
Love
Alleluia
The End
Chromatic Fantasy
For Susan
Orchids
Psalm 150
The Nightingale
Absalom
A Birthday
A Child Asleep in Its Own Life
Conversation
A Journey
The Land of Fear
Little Elegy
The Lordly Hudson
Nantucket
O Do Not Love Too Long
On a Little Bird
Poem for F.
The Serpent
Shelley's Vision
The Sick Wife
Spring (Hopkins)
Spring (Koch)
The Waking
What if some little pain...
While Sodom was occupied
A Glimpse
He Thinks Upon His Death
Philomel
Rain in Spring
You, the young Rainbow
Early in the Morning
Are you the new person?
Catullus: on the Burial of His Brother
Ferry me across the water
I strolled across an open field
I will always love you
Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
Look down, fair moon
Love in a Life
On a Singing Girl
Sometimes with one I love
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Such beauty as hurts to behold
That shadow, my likeness
To a Young Girl
Visits to St. Elizabeths
High & Medium/Low