I Will Always Love You
(1971)- Music by Ned Rorem
- Text by Frank O'Hara
"I Will Always Love You" is a song by Ned Rorem setting a poem by Frank O'Hara. The songs can be found in the volume Ned Rorem: 50 Collected Songs, published by Boosey & Hawkes.
Poem
by Frank O'Hara
I will always love you
though I never loved you
a boy smelling faintly of heather
staring up at your window
the passion that enlightens
and stills and cultivates, gone
while I sought your face
to be familiar in the blueness
or to follow your sharp whistle
around a corner into my light
that was love growing fainter
each time you failed to appear
I spent my whole self searching
love which I thought was you
it was mine so briefly
and I never knew it, or you went
I thought it was outside disappearing
but it is disappearing in my heart
like snow blown in a window
to be gone from the world
I will always love you.
