A few days shy of thirty years ago our second child, Amethyst Rose, was stillborn. It wasn't until a dozen years later that I wrote a song "For Amy" ([ogg] [mp3]); you'll find the lyrics and audio at the link, and in the set of memorial songs I posted last November on Día de Muertos, which fell on Saturday that year.

I think part of the reason it took me so long to write "For Amy" was that I'd already written something that worked for me -- a setting of Yeats's poem "The Stolen Child" -- sometime in Augusong st of 1990. I'd heard at least one other version; I've heard several more since. I latched onto the poem at once -- it was really too obvious for me not to have noticed. But the tunes I'd heard had a problem: they were too delicate and cheerful. I suppose the faeries would think so.

So I wrote my own, mostly in D minor. (Am capo 5, to be precise -- that was the only set of chord shapes that had the right combination of minor and suspended chords within easy reach.) The first three lines of the chorus, though, are in D major. What child wouldn't want to walk away "with a faery hand in hand"?

The only recording I could find of my version of "The Stolen Child" is one of a set of scratch tracks for what was meant to be my second CD, Amethyst Rose, and which I apparently abandoned some time in 2010. I suppose I ought to get back to that sometime. Sometime soon, preferably. But I'm not making any promises -- I know better.

The other reason it took me so long to write "For Amy" may be that I was already well into my series of prose poems posted on Usenet, and later LJ and DW. In particular, the one from 1991, which already includes the central images I would later use for the song.

The Stolen Child Music Copyright 1990 Stephen Savitzky. CC by-nc-sa/4.0. Words: William Butler Yeats For Amethyst Rose Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water-rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berries And of reddest stolen cherries Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim grey sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Over the young streams. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed: He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal-chest. For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

---

For Amy Copyright 2002 Stephen Savitzky. CC by-nc-sa/4.0. I sometimes have spoken about you But I never did write you a song; It's not that I ever forgot you, Though between us the years have grown long, But now after all that I've been through, the heartache, the laughter, the tears, I'm singing a song for my Amethyst Rose Who's waited for so many years. Chorus: The flowers of summer are shattered Their stems wrapped in shadow and frost, Their leaves and their petals wind-scattered, Reminders of all we have lost; But one stands with blossom unbroken, No matter what bitter wind blows, Of love and remembrance a token, Forever, for Amethyst Rose. Though you never were more than a shadow Stillborn before you could live Still I've always been drawn to your darkness-- Even shadows have something to give. And whenever my dreams have been shattered, And sift through my fingers like sand It's then I remember my Amethyst Rose And dream you are holding my hand. The flowers of summer are shattered Their stems wrapped in shadow and frost, Their leaves and their petals wind-scattered, Reminders of all we have lost; But one stands with blossom unbroken, No matter what bitter wind blows, Of love and remembrance a token, Forever, for Amethyst Rose. I dream of a petrified forest And gaze at a stone, silent glade Where one crystal flower stands blooming, Her stems and her leaves of green jade; Obsidian thorns keen as sorrow, But when I've been forgotten for years, Still there in the twilight my Amethyst Rose Will be blooming, untarnished by tears. The flowers of summer are shattered Their stems wrapped in shadow and frost, Their leaves and their petals wind-scattered, Reminders of all we have lost; But one stands with blossom unbroken, No matter what bitter wind blows, Of love and remembrance a token, Forever, for Amethyst Rose.

Look for another post on Tuesday, August 4th.