Tune Add: The Coyote (Badger Clark)

Subject: Tune Add: The Coyote - Badger Clark
From: Stewart
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 08:36 PM

Okay, I just can't resist a good lyric
without adding a tune to make a song.

The Coyote, a poem by Badger Clark
came up on this thread that I just saw a couple hours ago.

The words chose this melody (my own, I think)
which I quickly learned and recorded HERE

THE COYOTE
(Charles Badger Clark)

Trailing the last gleam after,
In the valleys emptied of light,
Ripples a whimsical laughter
Under the wings of the night.
Mocking the faded west airily,
Meeting the little bats merrily,
Over the mesas it shrills
To the red moon on the hills.

Mournfully rising and waning,
Far through the moon-silvered land
Wails a weird voice of complaining
Over the thorns and the sand.
Out of blue silences eerily,
On to the black mountains wearily,
Till the dim desert is crossed,
Wanders the cry, and is lost.

Here by the fire's ruddy streamers,
Tired with our hopes and our fears,
We inarticulate dreamers
Hark to the song of our years.
Up to the brooding divinity
Far in that sparkling infinity
Cry our despair and delight,
Voice of the Western night!

Badger Clark, in Grass Grown Trails,"
included in "Sun and Saddle Leather,"
1952 edition, pp. 107-108, Chapman & Grimes, Boston.

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: Tune Add: The Coyote - Badger Clark
From: Deckman
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 08:41 PM

Very, very nice. Quite lyrical. bob

Subject: RE: Tune Add: The Coyote - Badger Clark
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 09:37 PM

It lends itself well to harmony. I like it, very much! Thanks!

Subject: RE: Tune Add: The Coyote - Badger Clark
From: Stewart
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 03:48 PM

Thanks Kat

I just added it to my song page along with a pdf music score and a mp3 file.

Cheers, S. in Seattle
where coyotes seldom roam

Subject: RE: Tune Add: The Coyote - Badger Clark
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 03:55 PM

Nice song, Stewart. I have to say I don't have a very romantic view of coyotes. A pack of them set up a howl just outside our bedroom window one night last month, and my wife and I just about jumped through the ceiling...

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tune Add: The Coyote - Badger Clark
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 05:55 PM

They were just trying to spice things up for ya, Joe.:-)

Stewart, thanks for posting the pdf, etc. I will enjoy learning this one. We were raised on Clark, Kipling, Service and others.