literature

Melisma

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williamszm's avatar
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Literature Text

Oh chant your high descant and call
The thund'rous roll of heaven down--
The windows round and gasping light
Will tremble in their mortar holds--
Embolden all their quaking panes;
Fix fast to bricks their concrete frames;
The dome above support with prayers--
Each fresco and each stone enscrolled
Your harmonies should wend about:
Organ, your pipes piping must be
The bellows wailing breath in them;
Your iron soul half-stopped, release!
The world's song play for me.

And stones hewn free from sandstone cliffs
Must echo with their grainy voice,
Their red must bleed the blood they shed
As rosy dust upon the pews
Into the strain roving around--
Their sound is fair and should augment
The strident and the stately hymn--
Become the air! Your dust will clear
But still immortal you shall be
Within the song I hear.

But you, dear voices of the woods
Are lost with every tree new-felled
And quiet as the music stops.
Old flutes can play your tunes for you
They do so when the choir leaves
With remnants of a little rain--
Your song they still contain.

The last refrain now reaches me;
As marbled glass is darkening,
As gilded pages flake away,
And now I sing good-bye.
A poem inspired by the Gregorian chants I'm currently studying. Very interesting, and very pretty. This is a more 'experimental' poem than many of my others, I think, so hopefully it comes off as I intend.

Also, about the title (yes, I actually have one!):
A melisma is a point in a chant when basically a soloist would take a syllable of the text and heavily embellish it with lots of pitches. So it's very ornate, and kind of free--kind of like their emotion is just too much to be contained in one or two pitches. A good example can be found in typical "alleluias."

And now for some questions:
Does the ending work?
Does the vocabulary work?
Do the increasingly smaller stanzas create any impression? What impression?
Favorite line?

And anything else you want to comment/critique on would be much appreciated.

(for thewrittenrevolution: [link])
© 2011 - 2024 williamszm
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