In portraying the expanse between shrinking shore and distant horizons, Charles Ives' setting of Lord Byron's "A Farewell to Land" (1909) leads the singer from one end of her vocal range to the other. As the poem's speaker follows the path of the sun as it sinks into the ocean, so too does the singer's voice slowly slip underneath the surface of the sea. As the line of the horizon disappears, leaving the ship encircled by the uninterrupted border of sky and water, the chordal roar of the breakers and the dissonant "shrieks of the wild seamew" become the sparser, more static sounds of the sea

Text:

Adieu, adieu!

My native shore

Fades o'er the waters blue;

The night winds sigh,

The breakers roar

And shrieks the wild seamew.

Yon sun that sets upon the sea,

We follow in is flight;

Farewell awhile to him and thee,

My native Land,

Goodnight!

—George Gordon, Lord Byron

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