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Selected Poems for the RMCC Call for Compositions 2026
Below you’ll find the six poems selected for the Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir’s 2026 Call for Compositions. Each text has been chosen for its expressive potential and musical possibilities. Composers are invited to select from the following poems and create an original choral setting that brings its words to life in sound.
From Page to Voice
Change on Change
Elizabeth Barrett Browning [ 1806 - 1861 ]
Three months ago, the stream did flow,
The lilies bloomed along the edge;
And we were lingering to and fro,—
Where none will track thee in this snow,
Along the stream, beside the hedge.
Ah! sweet, be free to come and go;
For if I do not hear thy foot,
The frozen river is as mute,—
The flowers have dried down to the root;
And why, since these be changed since May,
Shouldst thou change less than they?
And slow, slow as the winter snow,
The tears have drifted to mine eyes;
And my two cheeks, three months ago,
Set blushing at thy praises so,
Put paleness on for a disguise.
Ah! sweet, be free to praise and go;
For if my face is turned to pale,
It was thine oath that first did fail,—
It was thy love proved false and frail!
And why, since these be changed, I trow,
Should I change less than thou?
​
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on December 19, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
Poppies
Digby Mackworth Dolben [ 1848 - 1867 ]
Lilies, lilies not for me,
Flowers of the pure and saintly—
I have seen in holy places
Where the incense rises faintly,
And the priest the chalice raises,
Lilies in the altar vases,
Not for me.
Leave untouched each garden tree,
Kings and queens of flower-land.
When the summer evening closes,
Lovers may-be hand in hand
There will seek for crimson roses,
There will bind their wreaths and posies
Merrily.
From the corn-fields where we met
Pluck me poppies white and red;
Bind them round my weary brain,
Strew them on my narrow bed,
Numbing all the ache and pain.—
I shall sleep nor wake again,
But forget.
​
This poem is in the public domain.
After Many Springs
Langston Hughes [ 1901 - 1967 ]
Now,
In June,
When the night is a vast softness
Filled with blue stars,
And broken shafts of moon-glimmer
Fall upon the earth,
Am I too old to see the fairies dance?
I cannot find them any more.
From The Weary Blues (Alfred A. Knopf, 1926) by Langston Hughes.
The Garden
Edwin Arlington Robinson [ 1869 - 1935 ]
There is a fenceless garden overgrown
With buds and blossoms and all sorts of leaves;
And once, among the roses and the sheaves,
The Gardener and I were there alone.
He led me to the plot where I had thrown
The fennel of my days on wasted ground,
And in that riot of sad weeds I found
The fruitage of a life that was my own.
My life! Ah, yes, there was my life, indeed!
And there were all the lives of humankind;
And they were like a book that I could read,
Whose every leaf, miraculously signed,
Outrolled itself from Thought’s eternal seed.
Love-rooted in God’s garden of the mind.
​
From The Children of the Night (published 1897).
Home
Carl Sandburg [ 1878 - 1967 ]
Here is a thing my heart wishes the world had more of:
I heard it in the air of one night when I listened
To a mother singing softly to a child restless and angry
in the darkness.
​
This poem is in the public domain.
Hope
Clara Ann Thompson [ 1869 - 1949 ]
The saddest day will have an eve,
The darkest night, a morn;
Think not, when clouds are thick and dark,
Thy way is too forlorn.
​
For ev'ry cloud that e'er did rise,
To shade thy life's bright way,
And ev'ry restless night of pain,
And ev'ry weary day,
​
Will bring thee gifts, thou'lt value more,
Because they cost so dear;
The soul that faints not in the storm,
Emerges bright and clear.
​
Songs from the Wayside (Self-published, 1908) by Clara Ann Thompson.
