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FROM CD #2:
Nuvoletta
Music by Samuel Barber (opus 25, 1947);
words by James Joyce (from Finnegans Wake)
Courtesy of The Harry Fox Agency, Inc.
Song Lyrics
Nuvoletta in her light dress, spunn of sisteen shimmers,
was looking down on them, leaning over the bannistars and listening all she childishly could.
She was alone. All her nubied companions were asleeping with the squir'ls.
She tried all the winsome wonsome ways her four winds had taught her.
She tossed her sfumastelliacinous hair like la princesse de la Petite Bretagne
and she rounded her mignons arms like Missis CornwallisWest
and she smiled over herself like the image of the pose of the daughter of the Emperour of Irelande
And she sighed after herself as were she born to bride with Tristis Tristior Tristissimus.
But, sweet madonine, she might fair as well have carried her daisy's worth to Florida...
Oh, how it was duusk. From Vallee Maraia to Grasya plaina, dormimust echo!
Ah dew! Ah dew! It was so duusk that the tears of night began to fall,
first by ones and twos, then by threes and fours, at last by fives and sixes of sevens,
for the tired ones were wecking; as we weep now with them.
O! O! O! Par la pluie...
Then Nuvoletta reflected for the last time in her little long life
and she made up all her myriads of drifting minds in one.
She cancelled all her engauzements. She climbed over the bannistars;
she gave a childy cloudy cry: Nuée! Nuée!
A light dress fluttered.
She was gone.