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I Want to Die While You Love Me

• Score: $1.50 (for reproduction rights; additional charge for hard copy)
• Alto/piano
• Secular text (Georgia Douglas Johnson, Harlem Renaissance poet)
• 1:30
• Difficulty rating (1-5): 3
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This work was written for alto Susan Brinker.

I Want to Die While You Love Me

I want to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair.

I want to die while you love me
And bear to that still bed
Your kisses—turbulent, unspent,
To warm me when I'm dead.

I want to die while you love me
Oh, who would care to live,
'Til love has nothing more to ask
And nothing more to give.

--Georgia Douglas Johnson

This text is in the public domain.

 

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