ABSTRACT
"Glory Be to God for Dappled Things" appears first in Seven Songs, although it was the third song Louise Talma composed on Hopkins's texts. Seven Songs, published as a set collected and ordered by Talma herself in 1986, comprises songs written between 1941 and 1973, spanning a large part of her working life. The earliest of the songs is "One Need Not Be a Chamber to Be Haunted," a setting of an Emily Dickinson poem. Luann Dragone suggested that Dickinson tells us that one's psyche has corridors that are haunted with a ghost that is more to be feared than any assassin. A professional singer as well as choral and orchestral director, Marwick had studied at Hunter College, where she came to know Talma. Talma's solution to the myriad of emotions present in the text is to compartmentalize them into individual musical sections.
