Duna 

Poem:  Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall;  Music: © 1965 Gordon Bok, BMI

 

I was pretty young when I found this poem and made the tune for it.  I went off and sang it for my grandmother, rest her gentle voice, and she said something like: "That's nice, dear, but you've got the tune all wrong."  A good idea gets around, I guess.

 

When I was a little lad

With folly on my lips,

Fain was I for journeying

All the seas in ships.

But I'm weary of the sea wind,

I'm weary of the foam,

And the little stars of Duna

Call me home.

 

When I was a young man,

Before my beard was grey,

All to seas and islands

I gave my heart away.

But now across the Southern swell

Every dawn I hear

The little streams of Duna

Running clear.

 

 

 

Duna is recorded on the albums Clear Away in the Morning and A Tune for November, and  is also in the songbook Time and the Flying Snow