MIDNIGHT SEA

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Cypress Choral Music · Midnight Sea – by Robert Rival

featuring Chor Leoni directed by Erick Lichte

LYRICS

The midnight sea was quite smooth,
And not a breath of wind was stirring.

At first we heard a harsh rustling sound,
As if a heavy squall of wind, accompanied by hail,

Was sweeping over the tranquil sea;
And, as the moon burst through the clouded sky,
We saw a sheet of foam and spray surging toward us.

In a few moments the vessel was surrounded by myriads of white-sided dolphins,

Which, in their playful movements,—
Tumbling, leaping, arching, plunging, lobtailing, finning,
Darting high and falling sidewise, with a spiteful splash and report—

For the space of one hour,
Whitened the sea all around as far as the eye could see,

When they almost instantly disappeared.

Text adapted by the composer from Charles M. Scammon’s
Marine Mammals of the North-Western Coast of North America (1874), ch. 9, “The Dolphins”, p. 98.