Musical works

Dedicated to Nobuko Imai, based on a poem by Emily Dickinson.
 
In the Garden
by Emily Dickinson
 
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
 
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
 
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,—
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head
 
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
 
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.