Work
When I Do Count the Clock that Tells the Time
for unaccompanied mixed choir
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About
When I Do Count the Clock that Tells the Time was written for John Rosser and Viva Voce (Auckland) for a concert with a 'summer' theme. Having already set the well-known "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" I looked for another sonnet that referenced summer, even if only in passing.
When I Do Count the Clock that Tells the Time
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard;
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
— William Shakespeare (Sonnet 12)