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MYSELF (2000)
for SATB Choir
           
 
PROGRAM NOTE
      
 
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
    
           
       
           
   
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.