The Dream

SA chorus and piano | Duration c. 3'

Hewitt Hill Music

The Dream was commissioned by the City of Palms Youth Choir, directed by Matt Koller, as a part of the Dreamsongs commissioning project. Each ensemble involved in this project had the opportunity to choose a text from Poems by a Little Girl by Hilda Conkling to serve as the basis for a commissioned composition for upper voices. Hilda was a child poet active in the early 20th century who wrote the vast majority of her poems between the ages of four and nine. Her mother would take dictation of Hilda’s spoken poems and allow her to make corrections before they were published – a remarkable process that captured the fanciful creative spirit of a little girl. 

Performance note: as Hilda Conkling was an American poet, the word “comfortable” should be pronounced in three syllables as it is in American English. IPA: /ˈkʌmf.tə.bəl/.

When I slept, I thought I was upon the mountain-tops,
And this is my dream.
I saw the little people come out into the night,
I saw their wings glittering under the stars.
Crickets played all the tunes they knew.
It was so comfortable with light…
Stars, a rainbow, the moon!
The fairies had shiny crowns
On their bright hair.
The bottoms of their little gowns were roses!
It was musical in the moony light,
And the fairy queen,
Oh, it was all golden where she came
With tiny pages on her trail.
She walked slowly to her high throne,
Slowly, slowly to music,
And watched the dancing that went on
All night long in star-glitter
On the mountaintops.
                               – Hilda Conkling