On our recent AMERICAN PILGRIMAGE concert, tenor Arnold Geis offered songs by composer Richard Hundley. For “Isaac Greentree” (1981), Hundley adapted a text from Samuel Palmer’s “Epitaphs and Epigrams: Curious, Quaint, Amusing” (1869). Arnold’s performance captured both the lyricism and the tenderness of this epitaph. (The text appears below.)
Click here to view Arnold’s performance of “Isaac Greentree” on YouTube.
Mark Salters is at the piano.
(Photo courtesy of Taso Papadakis)
In springtime comes
The gentle rain,
Soothing honey sweet breeze
And sheltering sun.
Beneath these trees
Rising to the skies
The planter of them
Isaac Greentree lies.
The time shall come
When these trees shall fall
And Isaac Greentree rise
Above them all.
Spacious Vision 