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When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Voices of Earth David C. Dickau (1953 – )
David Dickau is a nationally recognized choral conductor and composer residing in
Mankato, Minnesota, where he has served as Director of Choral Activities at Minnesota
State University Mankato since 1991. He holds advanced degrees in choral music from
Northwestern University and the University of Southern California. As part of his duties
at MSU, Dr. Dickau conducts the Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, and teaches
conducting and composition. He writes numerous commissioned pieces each year and
his compositions are widely performed throughout the United States.

Speaking to the theme of nature with remarkable depth and sensitivity, Canadian poet
Archibald Lampman’s “Voices of Earth” describes the sounds which give voice to Earth’s
“secret soul.” David Dichau’s magnificent music is a perfect complement to the poetic
imagery.

We have not heard the music of the spheres, These are the voices of earth’s secret soul,
The song of star to star, but there are sounds Uttering the mystery from which she came
More deep than human joy and human tears, To him who hears them grief beyond control,
That Nature uses in her common rounds; Or joy inscrutable without a name,
The fall of streams, the cry of winds that strain Wakes in his heart thoughts bedded there,
The oak, the roaring of the sea’s surge, might impearled,
Of thunder breaking afar off, or rain Before the birth and making of the world.
That falls by minutes in the summer night.

Sure On This Shining Night Morten Lauridsen (1943 – )
Morten Lauridsen is one of the most beloved of all living American composers. A 2007

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