Moonlit Apples

 

SATB + Piano

(get the score at Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Inc.)

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At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows,

And the skylight lets the moonlight in, and those

Apples are deep-sea apples of green. There goes

A cloud on the moon in the autumn night.

 

A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then

There is no sound at the top of the house of men

Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again

Dapples the apples with deep-sea light.

 

They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams;

On the sagging floor; they gather the silver streams

Out of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams,

And quiet is the steep stair under.

 

In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep.

And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep

Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep

On moon-washed apples of wonder.

 

– John Drinkwater (1882 - 1937)

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About the Piece:

 

Moonlit Apples ambiguously flows between being centered in a Mixolydian mode and its relative major key. Coupled with a subdued and nostalgic melody which closely follows the poem’s unique off-kilter rhyming pattern, it creates a sense of mystery, wonder, and a feeling of floating to personify the moonlit imagery in Drinkwater’s beautiful text.

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