Weeping Is A Comfort - (1991)
Gary Bachlund
for high, medium or low voice and piano
Weeping is a comfort,
but Love says "Fear not Death!"
For Love begets Love, born to glory.
Love must be our comfort,
for Love says "Fear not Death!"
And blessed are they who die with love and faith and hope.
Love must be our comfort,
for Love says "Fear not Death! Not Death!"
Weeping is a comfort, a comfort and Love.
This is excerpted from the Requiem for the Victims of AIDS (1991), and is a duet for soprano and tenor in its original setting.
This simple statement of comfort is placed in the "Libera me" section of the Requiem, and leads to a more complex double canon in the complete work carrying the enlarged words of faith and hope with in the context of loss:
Wash with tears the anger and the sorrow.
Think on yesterday and dream tomorrow.
Now I lay me down to die.
Love must speak my last goodbye.