THE MAPLE
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featuring the Canadian Chamber Choir
Unusual, evocative, innocent, and delightful – these are words people have used to describe this fetching composition. Singers and listeners will enjoy the multiple layers Leah adds over a simple ostinato – which can be played on piano, organ or even xylophone/Orff instruments. Leah’s relatable message is that it’s easy to become stuck in patterns, and that we must do our best to “liftoff” and free ourselves from what weighs us down.
LYRICS
Oh, tenderly deepen the woodland glooms,
And merrily sway the beeches;
Breathe delicately the willow blooms,
And the pines rehearse new speeches;
The elms toss high till they brush the sky,
Pale catkins the yellow birch launches,
But the tree I love all the greenwood above
Is the maple of sunny branches.
Let who will sing of the hawthorn in spring,
Or the late-leaved linden in summer;
There’s a word may be for the locust-tree,
That delicate, strange new-comer;
But the maple it glows with the tint of the rose
When pale are the spring-time regions,
And its towers of flame from afar proclaim
The advance of Winter’s legions.
And a greener shade there never was made
Than its summer canopy sifted,
And many a day as beneath it I lay
Has my memory backward drifted
To a pleasant lane I may walk not again,
Leading over a fresh, green hill,
Where a maple stood just clear of the wood—
And oh, to be near it still!
poet – Charles Roberts (1860-1943)