2018 Concert Series Gallipoli to the Somme | Page 10

E nga rau e rima,

Ko te Hokowhitu toa

A Tu-mata-uenga:

Te Ope Tuatahi
The chosen heroes
Of Tu-mata-uenga
The Angry-Eyed War God.’
3. Farewell - Soprano solo. Text by Helen Thomas, to her lover Edward
Thomas, soldier and poet, killed in France, 1917. Reproduced in A Broken
World: Letters, Diaries and Memories if the Great War , edited by Sebastian
Faulks and Hope Wolf. Hutchinson, 2015.
“We were alone in my room. He took me in his arms, holding me
tightly to him, his face white, his eyes full of a fear I had never
seen before. . . ‘Beloved, I love you’ was all I could say. ‘Jenny,
Jenny, Jenny’ he said ‘remember that, whatever happens, all is
will between us for ever and ever. And hand in hand we went
downstairs and out to the children who were Playing in the snow…
“I stood at the gate watching him go: he turned back to wave
until the mist and the hill hid him. I heard his old call coming up
to me: ‘Coo-ee!’ ‘Coo-ee!’ I answered. . . . I put my hands up to
my mouth to make a trumpet but no sound came. Panic seized
me, and I ran through the mist . . . There was nothing but the
mist and the snow and the silence of death.”
4. The Train – Soprano solo, baritone solo, and choir. Poem by Helen
MacKay, a nurse based in Paris during the war, 1915. Published in London:
One November , during the war.
Will the train never start?
God, make the train start.
She cannot bear it, keeping up so long;
and he, he no more tries to laugh at her.
He is going.
She holds his two hands now.
Now, she has touch of him and sight of him.
And then he will be gone.
He will be gone.
They are so young.
She stands under the window of his carriage,
and he stands in the window.
They hold each other’s hands
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