1986
The Lady to Her Guitar
Composed by 
David Leisner
David Leisner Text by Emily Brontë
Confiding Song Collection
"The Lady to Her Guitar" is the sixth song of David Leisner's song cycle Confiding, which sets the poetry of women poets.
This cycle is available in versions for high voice and piano, medium voice and piano, and high voice and guitar.
The audio selection in the player to the right features Mary Ann Hart, mezzo-soprano, and Jon Klibonoff, piano. The recording is from a live performance in New York in 1990 (unrevised piano version). Used with the permission of the composer.
Text
The Lady to her Guitar
by Emily Brontë
For him who struck thy foreign string
I ween this heart hath ceased to care;
Then why dost thou such feelings bring
To my sad spirit, old guitar?
It is as if the warm sunlight
In some deep glen should lingering stay,
When clouds of tempest and of night
Had wrapt the parent orb away.
It is as if the glassy brook
Should image still its willows fair,
Though years ago the woodman’s stroke
Laid low in dust their gleaming hair.
Even so, guitar thy magic tone
Has moved the tear and waked the sigh,
Has bid the ancient torrent flow
Although its very source is dry!
Related Information
Theodore Presser
presser.com/Composers/info.cfm?Name=DAVIDLEISNERAudio
“The Lady to Her Guitar” (from “Confiding”)
Mary Ann Hart (mezzo-soprano) & Jon Klibonoff (piano)2:44