Ian Keith Harris

This work was completed in November 2005, and is a free setting of a poem by Jennifer Paull. It is for countertenor, oboe d’amore, harp and string quartet (string orchestra). I have endeavoured to respond in music to the evocation of the words. This work is dedicated respectfully to Jennifer Paull.

The White Rose

Crystallised mists
to hoarfrost crept
budding sequins in their stillness

See the white rose

Snowflakes swirled
drifts piled high
growing velvet in their vastness

Touch the white rose

White horses tossed
ripe manes to surf
chorusing salt in their closeness

Smell the white rose

Billowing clouds
swept an evening sky
fleeting like swans in their swiftness

Hear the white rose

Gentle petal
cruel thorn
only of both
is true love born

Taste the white rose

© Jennifer Paull 1988

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