Song of America

The Breath of a Rose

(1928)

Still set Hughes' poem in 1928, two years before writing his famous Afro-American Symphony.

Breath of a Rose
by Langston Hughes

Love is like dew
On lilacs at dawn:
Comes the swift sun
And the dew is gone.

Love is like star-light
In the sky at morn:
Star-light that dies
When day is born.

Love is like perfume
In the heart of a rose:
The flower withers,
The perfume goes--

Love is no more
Than the breath of a rose,
No more
Than the breath of a rose.

--The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, p. 305

Dreamer - A Portrait of Langston Hughes (Taylor, Corey, Santos, & Terry-Ross)
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Amen! African American Composers (Oral Moses, George Bailey)
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I Hear America Singing (Thomas Hampson)
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More Still: Music of William Grant Still (Toppin, Strickland, Taylor, et al.)
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Music of William Grant Still (VocalEssence, Williams, Harris, et al.)
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Wondrous Free (Thomas Hampson)
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Works By William Grant Still (Robert Honeysucker, Vivian Taylor)
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William Grant Still: The American Scene (Margaret Astrup, Howard Cass )
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