- Cheryl Frances-Hoad
A World of Worlds (2017)
- Cadenza Music (World)
Commissioned for the Girls' Choir of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, by Rona Fairhead, to mark the retirement from the Mastership of Professor Dame Jean Thomas.
- pf
- SA
- 5 min
- Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.
Programme Note
Premiered by St. Catherine's College Girls' Choir, conducted by Edward Wickham, at St. Catherine's College Chapel on 28th April 2017.
Just like as in a nest of boxes round,
Degrees of sizes in each box are found:
So, in this world, may many others be
Thinner and less, and less still by degree:
Although they are not subject to our sense,
A world may be no bigger than two-pence.
Nature is curious, and such works may shape,
Which our dull senses easily escape:
For creatures, small as atoms, may there be,
If every one a creature’s figure bear.
If atoms four, a world can make, then see
What several worlds might in an ear-ring be:
For, millions of those atoms may be in
The head of one small, little, single pin.
And if thus small, then ladies may well wear
A world of worlds, as pendents in each ear.
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-73)
Just like as in a nest of boxes round,
Degrees of sizes in each box are found:
So, in this world, may many others be
Thinner and less, and less still by degree:
Although they are not subject to our sense,
A world may be no bigger than two-pence.
Nature is curious, and such works may shape,
Which our dull senses easily escape:
For creatures, small as atoms, may there be,
If every one a creature’s figure bear.
If atoms four, a world can make, then see
What several worlds might in an ear-ring be:
For, millions of those atoms may be in
The head of one small, little, single pin.
And if thus small, then ladies may well wear
A world of worlds, as pendents in each ear.
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-73)