Beholden

for mezzo-soprano, piano, and electronics

2020

Premiered by Tessa Romano (mezzo), Terence Dennis (piano), and Silen Wellington (electronics) at the University of Otago, Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Text and music are both by Silen Wellington.

Text:

Every step falls away,
Break your heart on the wind,
Every step falls away.
You’ll be mine before you know.

Plutonian name collector
Tread lightly,
Plutonian name collector
Give your lust!

Sacrifice every formation,
Make sacred, make sacred.
Lain bare to this grand cosmology,
Possessed by ancient magic,
Fate to seismic sorcery —
Let this be prophecy.

Would you like this ephemeral grandeur?
Taste the revelation you chase
‘round your head,
Call it a seductive madness.
We will claim you,
make complete your practice of sacred revolt.

Come away, oh child,
to the dark of your own design.
You’ve walked my mist
since the beginning of time. 
Would you not twist all of fate?
To keep burning your wretched flame
of passion.

Surrender to this great love,
a vast and dark ruler,
a kindred madness.
Spiral crown to roots
and beneath again.

Give me the stars that die on your lips,
Give me the monsters in your blood,
Sing me again, shudder.
Give me all your howls at the moon,
screaming at dead leaves
falling from your mouth.
Surrender, 
hold tight to quaking limbs,
Spring life into my veins,
Surrender to this great love.

Ours for a small eternity.
Until dawn falls,
Beholden to horizon.