Sung by Roberto Mancusi with John Flinders (piano).
Genre: Vocal
Mood: Cheerful
Forces: Male voice, Piano
Length: 3 Minutes
A Slice of Wedding Cake (1995) – Robert Graves poem for male voice and piano.
A Slice of Wedding Cake
Why have such scores of lovely gifted girls
Married impossible men?
Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out,
And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.
Repeat ‘impossible men’; not merely rustic
Foul-tempered or depraved
(Dramatic foils chosen to show the world
How well women behave, and always have behaved).
Impossible men: idle, illiterate
Self-pitying, dirty, sly
For whose appearance even in City parks
Excuses must be made to casual passers-by.
Has God’ supply of tolerable husbands
Fallen in fact so low?
Or do I always over-value woman
At the expense of man?
Do I?
It might be so.
Robert Graves ©1964
First performance:
9 Sep 2011, Roberto Mancusi and John Flinders, St Martin in the Fields London.