Robert Rogler - "Six Summer Songs" Live at the Music Mansion.

Soprano Lauren Florek and Pianist Matt Savage perform Robert Rogler's "Six Summer Songs" in its entirety live at the Music Mansion in Providence, Rhode Island on September 16, 2023.
This song cycle is available on the album Sing a Song of Seasons.
roglercollection.com/album/25...
Music by Robert Rogler
Performed by Lauren Florek & Matt Savage
Videography by Matthew Rogler & Julia Rogler
Sheet music available at roglercollection.com/six-summ...
LYRICS
1. Bed in Summer (by Robert Louis Stevenson)
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
2. The Little Cares (by Elizabeth Barrett Browning) - 1:00
The little cares that fretted me,
I lost them yesterday
Among the fields above the sea,
Among the winds at play;
Among the lowing herds,
The rustling of the trees,
Among the singing birds,
The humming of the bees.
The foolish fears of what may happen
I cast them all away
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the new-mown hay;
[Among] the husking of the corn
Where drowsy poppies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born,
Out in the fields with God.
3. Summer Sun (by Robert Louis Stevenson) - 2:44
Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven without repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.
The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles,
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.
Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.
4. Hurt No Living Thing (by Christina Rossetti) - 5:14
Hurt no living thing;
Ladybird, nor butterfly,
Nor moth with dusty wing,
Nor cricket chirping cheerily,
Nor grasshopper so light of leap,
Nor dancing gnat, nor beetle fat,
Nor harmless worms that creep.
5. At the Seaside (by Robert Louis Stevenson) - 6:16
When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup,
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.
6. Sonnet XVIII - Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day (by William Shakespeare) - 6:49
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
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