1930

Whispers of Heavenly Death

Composed by Ernst Bacon
Text by Walt Whitman

Songs at Parting Song Collection

"Whispers of Heavenly Death" is the seventh song in Ernst Bacon's song collection Songs at Parting: A Selection of Poems by Walt Whitman. The final lines of the poem (from "Some parturition..." to the end) are to be spoken at a pianissimo dynamic as the piano sustains a soft chord.

Text

Whispers of Heavenly Death
by Walt Whitman

Whispers of heavenly death murmur’d I hear,
Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals,
Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low,
Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever flowing,
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)

I see, just see skyward, great cloud-masses,
Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing,
With at times a half-dimm’d sadden’d far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.

(Some parturition rather, some solemn immortal birth;
On the frontiers to eyes impenetrable,
Some soul is passing over.)

Sheet Music

Songs at Parting

Ernst Bacon
1. Grand is the Seen
2. The Last Invocation
3. Darest Thou Now, O Soul
4. Twilight
5. One Thought Ever at the Fore
6. Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
7. Whispers of Heavenly Death
8. The Sobbing of the Bells
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