Sea Drift (Delius)

Sea Drift is among the larger-scale musical works by the composer Frederick Delius. Completed in 1903-1904 and first performed in 1906, it is a setting for baritone, chorus and orchestra of words by Walt Whitman.

Sea Drift takes its name from a section of Walt Whitman's poetical compilation Leaves of Grass, Sea-Drift, which contains several poems about the sea or the shore. The text is drawn from the poem Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, though it does not use the full text. In the poem, the speaker describes how, as a boy, he watched a pair of mocking-birds nesting, until one day the she-bird flew away and never returned. In a long section usually printed in italics, the he-bird, unable to leave in case his mate should return and find him gone, waits forever and calls his sorrowful song to the moon, the stars and the sea, which are heavy and drooping with his lost love.

The text employed by Delius closes with the bird's apostrophe, 'translated' by the boy, who seems to understand it, or projects it from his own awakening feelings. The poem however continues to explain how the boy's feelings suddenly burst out tumultuously, and he ran weeping down to the sea in the moonlight as the bird's call unlocked the questions in his own heart. Knowing that he will never escape the unknown want aroused in him, 'the sweet hell within', he begs for some word more of understanding. The unhurrying sea

Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,
And again death, death, death, death
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart,
But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,
Death, death, death, death, death.

Throughout the work, which lasts about 25 minutes, the motion of the waves is suggested by the orchestra. The chorus opens (the beginning of the poem, 'Out of the cradle...' is omitted) at 'Once Paumanok, when the lilac-scent was in the air...', two sections weaving the words to suggest the two birds. Then the baritone is the narrator, and tells ('And every day...') how the boy went and watched, and the chorus responds with the birds singing together ('Shine! shine! shine!'). The baritone interrupts ('Till of a sudden...') to tell how the she-bird disappeared, and the he-bird was left. The chorus gives the bird's cry, and the baritone responds with the lyrical passage describing how the boy listened to the song, 'Yes my brother, I know: The rest might not, but I have treasured every note...'

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