1984


Night Without Sleep

Composed by Paul Bowles
"Night Without Sleep," which sets the text of Charles Henri Ford, was written in 1943, but was not published until 1984 in Selected Songs.

Text

Night Without Sleep
by Charles Henri Ford

Will I die if I sit in that chair?
The moonlight will fade my hair
though the watersnakes drown
the day I am found

Trees blowing the wrong way
hinder night’s becoming day.
Do bats calculate their flight
or does the daylight?

Father eats black bread,
while I eat white;
My sister wears one hat
and I wear nine.

When I die there’s no telling where
the moonlight will find my hair
But if I walked on the sea
between your bed and mine.
Should I reach it in time
or would sleep save me?

Sheet Music