Witch-Wife (2020)
for SSAA choir | 00:03:00
by Melissa Dunphy | text by Edna St. Vincent Millay
About
Commissioned by Choir Matrix Women's Ensemble, sponsored by Consonare Choral Community, Sarah Kaufold, Artistic Director.Edna St. Vincent Millay's 1917 love poem sounds surprisingly contemporary in this wistful folk-like setting for intermediate treble chorus.
Artwork by Arnold Genthe (1914).
Lyrics
Witch-Wife
By Edna St. Vincent Millay
From Renascence: And Other Poems (1917)
She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.
She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun 'tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.
She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.
Performances
- 14 Mar, 2026: Vrouwenkoor Nordlys at Walloon Church, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- 13 Mar, 2026: Vrouwenkoor Nordlys at Pieterskerk, Utrecht, Netherlands
- 07 Mar, 2026: Vrouwenkoor Nordlys at Goede Reede, Almere, Netherlands
- 13 Oct, 2024: Vox Lusciniae at Third Presbyterian Church, Rochester, NY
- 12 Oct, 2024: Vox Lusciniae at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Buffalo, NY
- 15 Oct, 2023: Lilith Vocal Ensemble at First Parish UU, Needham, MA
- 14 Oct, 2023: Lilith Vocal Ensemble at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Cambridge, MA
- 20 Nov, 2021: Barksdale Treble Chorus and Botetourt Chamber Singers at Bruton Parish Episcopal Church, Williamsburg, VA
- 14 Nov, 2021: Choir Matrix/Voices of Concinnity at New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT
- 28 Mar, 2021: Choir Matrix Women's Ensemble at Virtual