I was delighted to hear this beautiful concert recording of my Three Summer Wassails, based on poetry by composer/poet Forrest Pierce, by the new Halifax-based new music choir Eastern Horizons, co-directed by Jack Bennet, Christina Murray, and Lynette Wahlstrom. Please let me know if you’d like a perusal copy of these pieces to consider for your choir!
THREE SUMMER WASSAILS
Music by Emily Doolittle
Poetry by Forrest Pierce
Blackberry Wassail
I set a berry in my mouth,
the rose of sweet September,
I set a berry in my mouth,
so sweet and tart and tender.
I bit the berry with my teeth,
the rose of sweet October,
I bit the berry with my teeth,
and felt the juice spill over.
I drank the berry down my throat,
the rose of sweet November,
I drank the berry down my throat,
and felt my heart remember.
I felt a thorn stick in my hand,
the rose of fading Autumn,
I felt a thorn stick in my hand,
the pain of friends forgotten.
Oh bramble, briar, and thorny thicket,
fruit of canes and fragile flower.
You wound my hands each time I pick it,
you melt my heart sweet, tart, and sour.
Potato Wassail
Come, little spud,
Little Baldy Underhill,
Balloon of the mud,
Jacket-wrapped against the chill.
Send us some green,
Wink your eyes and sprout a shoot,
Don’t be too mean
With your cuddlebellies underfoot.
Come, little spud,
Greeny leaves to catch the sun,
Swelling in the mud
Chilly-safe ‘til summer’s done.
In russet, in gold,
In pan or in pot,
In bland or in bold,
We’ll eat what you’ve got!
Mushroom Wassail
Mushroom plate! Mushroom plate!
The forager wants a mushroom plate!
Chant we now for the chanterelle, its fronds and gills and frills
Pine we now for the fat Penny Bun ,its heft and chubby-necked thrills.
Flee from the stick of the Fly Agaric whose toadstool hat brings pain.
Deft and apt is the round Death Cap whose name is self and same.
More we yell for the wrinkly Morel its oak and sulphur scent.
Chuffed and full, sing the Summer Truffle, whose warts are black and bent.
Don’t dare dandle the Destroying Angel, it’s white and short and kills.
A shy ballerina is the Deadly Galerina who slays with her tutu frills.
Cheery Words for the Chicken of the Woods that tastes like a little orange hen.
Shave a snap of the Shaggy ink cap whose flesh makes ink for your pen.
There is no heaven like the rotten earth’s leaven when it fruits in shoots and shrooms.
There is no hell like the rotten earth’s bell that peals the meals of dooms.
Mushroom plate! Mushroom plate!
The forager wants a Mushroom plate!
