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MYSELF (2000)
for SATB Choir
           
 
PROGRAM NOTES
     
 
Myself (2000) uses the text of a late nineteenth century slave poet named George Moses Horton, the "Colored Bard of North Carolina". The poem Myself was taken from a collection of his works titled Naked Genius which was compiled and published in 1865 by a Michigan Cavalry Volunteer named Capitan Will H.S. Banks. It deals with Horton's dream to be a singer, which he never realized in his lifetime.
   
         
     
    Florida State University Chamber Singers, Mark Jennings, conductor
score sample
    
           
    READING      
    Reading by the Florida State University Chamber Singers, Mark Jennings, conductor    
         
       
           
   
MYSELF COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY JAMES BARRY (ASCAP)
    
           
    TEXT      
   

Myself, George Moses Horton (ca.1797-1883)

I feel myself in need
of the inspiring strains of ancient lore,
My heart to lift, my empty mind to feed,
And all the world to explore.

I know that I am old
And never can recover what is past,
But for the future may some light unfold,
And soar from the ages blast,

I feel resolved to try,
My wish to prove, my calling to pursue,
Or mount up from the earth into the sky,
To show what heaven can do.

My genius from a boy,
Has fluttered like a bird within my heart;
But could not thus confined her powers to employ,
Impatient to depart.

She, like a restless bird,
Would spread her wing, her power to be unfurl'd,
And let her songs be loudly heard,
And dart from world to world.