Laura Littlefield
“They Bid Me Sleep”
Victor 18674
1918
from Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady Of The Lake
They bid me sleep, they bid me pray,
They say my brain is warped and wrung—
I cannot sleep on Highland brae,
I cannot pray in Highland tongue.
But were I now where Allan glides,
Or heard my native Devan’s tides,
So sweetly would I rest, and pray
That Heaven would close my wintry day!
‘Twas thus my hair they bade me braid,
They made me to the church repair;
It was my bridal morn they said,
And my true love would meet me there.
But woe betide the cruel guile
That drowned in blood the morning smile!
And woe betide the fairy dream!
I only waked to sob and scream.
The soprano’s full name was Laura Comstock Littlefield.
She was born in 1882 in Malden, Massachusetts, which is between Boston and Salem.
She was a graduate of Radcliffe College in 1904 and went on to become a talented concert soprano heard in the Boston area from the World War I years to the mid- ‘20s.
She was a soloist with the Boston Symphony, the Händel and Haydn Society, the Cecilia Society of Boston.
She gave many recitals, once in Aeolian Hall in New York (in 1925).
The November 9, 1922, edition of Musical Courier announced her return to the United States from Europe, where she had studied with Jean De Reszke.
From 1930 to 1934, Littlefield was assistant Professor of Music at the University of Michigan.
She died in 1941 in Durham, North Carolina, as she was traveling to Florida.
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