VOCES8 Foundation Choir & Orchestra with Jack Liebeck
The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound
Of many links without a break,
As up he wings the spiral stair,
A song of light, that pierces air
To reach the shining tops of day,
And drink in everything discern’d
An ecstasy to music turn’d.
He is, the hills, the human line,
The meadows green, the fallows brown,
He sings the sap, the quicken’d veins;
The wedding song of sun and rains
He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,
And eye of violets while they breathe;
All these the circling song will wreathe.
Was never voice of ours could say
Our inmost in the sweetest way,
Like yonder voice aloft, and link
All hearers in the song they drink.
⁓ George Meredith