When the World Is Laid Waste

Music: Mathis der Maler: 2nd Movement (Grablegung)
By Paul Hindemith. Sequenced by David Siu at Kunst der Fuge .

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Copyright by
Nicholas Gordon

When the world is laid waste,

And its celebrants are cinders,

And its clothes ashes;

 

When it is once again a dead rock,

Like the rock that encircles it,

Its dust open to the poisonous wind;

 

When we have wrought what we’ve wrought

And done what we’ve done,

And there is no one left to look back in sorrow or anger:

 

Ah, then, what a song will never be sung!

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