To order scores, please fill out this form!
Instrumentation: SSA chorus + acoustic guitar & piano
Duration: 3’56”
Poet: Emily Pauline Johnson
Text:
And only where the forest fires have sped,
Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands,
A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head,
And, like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed,
It hides the scars with almost human hands.
And only to the heart that knows of grief,
Of desolating fire, of human pain,
There comes some purifying sweet belief,
Some fellow-feeling beautiful, if brief.
And life revives, and blossoms once again.
-Emily Pauline Johnson
This poem is in the public domain.