Sowash: “The Days of Our Glory” for baritone.

Ann Ackerman, my Senior English teacher at Lexington High School in Lexington, Ohio, was the best teacher I ever had.  Five years after my high school graduation, I married her daughter, after which Mrs. Ackerman became the best (and only) mother-in-law I ever had.

She was hugely entertaining in class but also very demanding.  For one, she made us memorize poems, something I had never done.  One was this poem by Lord Byron, all about youthful arrogance, impetuosity and love:

Stanzas Written on the Road Between Florence and Pisa

Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

O Fame! -if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

Memorizing those stanzas was a steep climb for a kid growing up in rural north central Ohio, but there was no getting around it.  I nailed it and can recite it to this day, fifty years later.  Now that I have a “brow that is wrinkled” and a “head that is hoary” I view the poem differently than I did when I was 17.  When I recite it to myself, I think, “Heck.  Lord Byron was dead at 36.  What did he know about wrinkles?  Diddley-squat."

I’ve memorized quite a few poems.  After I have a poem in my head, it sometimes begins to “sing.”  Before I know it, I’m writing a new song.

When I set this poem to music, in 1977, I tried to capture its high Romanticism, galloping rhythm and breathless, forward-plunging speed.  The song goes by mighty quickly, clocking in at a little over 90 seconds.

Byron’s title being a bit of a mouthful, I re-named it, “The Days of Our Glory."

To hear baritone Dan Hoy’s strapping rendition of “The Days of Our Glory,” click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/days_glory.mp3

To see a PDF of the score, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/days_glory.pdf