This Nearly Was Mine

Rogers and Hammerstein

When we began offering Word & Song to our readers last July, my intention was to share a popular song — folk tunes, pop classics, swing, even a little light rock — from time to time, maybe once a month, whenever something in the magazine reminded me of a great old song. I have to confess to loving so many songs so very much that they just KEEP COMING TO MIND. So I found myself doing a weekly entry for Sometimes a Song, and more often than not thinking of more than one song to share. You may have noticed that I choose songs with a link (sometimes obvious, sometimes rather tenuous, sometimes even a little mischievous) to the week’s fare. So, you may ask, what has a Rogers and Hammerstein musical built on a James Michener book about an imaginary island in the South Pacific got to do with Word & Song this week? I mean, Lent is upon us, and we are talking about Moses. Well…

The song came to my mind when I read (and listened to) this week’s Poetry Aloud, Tony’s recitation of the final portion of one of the monologues he has composed for his forthcoming sacred poem, The Twelve-Gated City. If you haven’t yet heard that podcast, the poem is written in the persona of Moses, who is speaking to Joshua, as they have finally arrived where God has led them, and can see the Promised Land across the Jordan River. The Lord has told Moses that his job is done. After forty years of wandering in the desert Moses has brought his people to their destination, only to learn that what he can see across the river will not be for him to gain, but that Joshua will lead his people to the long-sought homeland. I was pondering, as Tony’s poem invites us to do, what Moses might think to be that close to, and yet not have, what he had struggled so long and so mightily to gain. Perhaps he thought, “This nearly was mine.”

Sometimes a Song can be sad and yet have a beauty born of suffering, of sorrow, of love lost. And it isn’t just the title (and refrain) of this week’s song that the story of Moses on Mount Pisgah put me in mind of, but the bittersweet contemplation of the dearly loved and longed-for thing that is not to be .. not for the lover, at least. “This Nearly Was Mine” is a song with no hint of bitterness, but of resignation, as the singer sadly admits to himself that he did to value the paradise before him until it had passed beyond his reach. All of this — the deep sorrow, the regret, and the complexity of situation — Oscar Hammerstein (in the lyrics) and Richard Rogers (in the hauntingly beautiful melody he wrote for those lyrics) created for the the sad resolution of a story which they brought to life in the form of a brilliant and immensely popular Broadway musical.

Here, then, is “This Nearly Was Mine,” sung by long-time Metropolitan Opera star, George (Giorgio) Tozzi, and conducted by the great Hollywood arranger/composer, Alfred Newman, with the Rogers’ and Hammerstein’s orchestration, for the soundtrack of the film, South Pacific. (See lyrics below.)

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This Nearly Was Mine

One dream in my heart,
One love to be living for,
One love to be living for—
This nearly was mine.

One girl for my dreams,
One partner in Paradise,
This promise of Paradise—
This nearly was mine.

Close to my heart she came,
Only to fly away,
Only to fly as day
Flies from moonlight!

Now, now I’m alone,
Still dreaming of Paradise,
Still saying that Paradise
Once nearly was mine.

So clear and deep are my fancies
Of things I wish were true,
I’ll keep remembering evenings
I wish I’d spent with you.

I’ll keep remembering kisses
From lips I’ll never own
And all the lovely adventures
That we have never known.

One dream in my heart,
One love to be living for,
One love to be living for,
This nearly was mine.

Close to my heart she came,
Only to fly away,
Only to fly as day
Flies from moonlight!

Now, now I’m alone,
Still dreaming of Paradise,
Still saying that Paradise
Once nearly was mine.

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