1965

Even in the Moment

Composed by Margaret Bonds

Four Songs Song Collection

"Even in the Moment" is an art song by composer Margaret Bonds with text derived from the poem of the same name by Edna St Vincent Millay. The song is part of Bonds' song cycle, Four Songs.

Audio

“Even in the Moment” (from “Four Songs”)
Leberta Lorál, sporano; Jeffrey Sykes, piano3:06

Margaret Bonds

Composer

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Poet(s)/Writer(s)

2022

Date

University of California, Irvine, Winifred Smith Hall

Location

This recording was part of a 5:30pm concert ("A Salute to Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)") on Saturday, October 15, 2022 during the 25th Anniversary African American Art Song Alliance Conference. The concert venue was Winifred Smith Hall at the University of California, Irvine.

Text

Even in the moment of our earliest kiss,
When sighed the straitened bud into the flower,
Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this;
And that I knew, thought not the day and hour.
Too season-wise am I, being country-bred,
To tilt at autumn or defy the frost:
Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did,
I say with them, “What’s out tonight is lost.”
I only hoped, with the mild hope of all
Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree,
A fairer summer and a later fall
Than in these parts a man is apt to see,
And sunny clusters ripened for the wine:
I tell you this across the blackened vine.