Attention All Poetry & Prose Experts

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

Bit of a strange one here. I'm casting far and wide for material to be used as choral texts for something extra-special that I'm writing.

The subject matter is, as you might guess, space/stars/the night... that sort of thing, and anything along similar lines. I have one or two possibilities already in mind, but it's tough to track down anything on those subjects that's really exceptional and not a bit lukewarm. Rilke, Whitman, and Poe seem likely to be fruitful.

Drawing from anything - poetry, prose, real quotes, religious texts, whatever, post anything that comes to mind here, please. The less corny, the better.

 

With appreciation,

Alex/Mike/George/TGP/whatever you'd prefer to call me

[Roll the Bones 2,967]

"By the starlit mere of Cuiviénen, Water of Awakening, they rose from the sleep of Ilúvatar; and while they dwelt yet silent by Cuiviénen their eyes beheld first of all things the stars of heaven..." -J. R. R. Tolkien

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

Exactly, that kind of thing.

Relevant artwork.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,765]

When the Jews return to Zion

A comet lights the sky

The Holy Roman Empire rises

And you and I must die

From the eternal sea, he rises

Creating armies on either shore

Turning man against his brother

'Til man exists no more

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

Satanic associations avoided, if possible.

[nightscape94 965]

Maybe Shakespeare? Sonnet 14.

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;
And yet methinks I have astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well,
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

It's not about the beauty of space or the stars, but rather a person.

[Incanus 5,519]

"By the starlit mere of Cuiviénen, Water of Awakening, they rose from the sleep of Ilúvatar; and while they dwelt yet silent by Cuiviénen their eyes beheld first of all things the stars of heaven..." -J. R. R. Tolkien

A Elbereth Gilthoniel

silivren penna míriel

o menel aglar elenath!

Na-chaered palan-díriel

o galadhremmin ennorath,

Fanuilos, le linnathon,

nef aear, sí nef aearon!

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

Incanus, you're a bit of a scholar, yes? I'd especially welcome suggestions from esoteric/ancient sources. I have a particular fondness for Latin and Nordic tongues.

[Incanus 5,519]

Incanus, you're a bit of a scholar, yes? I'd especially welcome suggestions from esoteric/ancient sources. I have a particular fondness for Latin and Nordic tongues.

I have to dig to my books when I get back home.

But how about this? Too verbose?

Hymn to the North Star

The sad and solemn night

Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires;

The glorious host of light

Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires;

All through her silent watches, gliding slow,

Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.

Day, too, hath many a star

To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they:

Through the blue fields afar,

Unseen, they follow in his flaming way:

Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim,

Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.

And thou dost see them rise,

Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.

Alone, in thy cold skies,

Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet,

Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train,

Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

There, at morn's rosy birth,

Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,

And eve, that round the earth

Chases the day, beholds thee watching there;

There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls

The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.

Alike, beneath thine eye,

The deeds of darkness and of light are done;

High towards the star-lit sky

Towns blaze--the smoke of battle blots the sun--

The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud--

And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

On thy unaltering blaze

The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost,

Fixes his steady gaze,

And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;

And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,

Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

And, therefore, bards of old,

Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,

Did in thy beams behold

A beauteous type of that unchanging good,

That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray

The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

--From Poems / William Cullen Bryant

Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

Absolutely in the right spirit, but possibly a bit much, like the Shakespeare. I could extract certain musical/mellifluous snippets from lengthy stuff like that, but I don't necessarily want to butcher something up if I can avoid it.

I don't plan to set the texts "up front" where they're meant to be clearly heard; I'm going for a more impressionistic approach (shockingly ). I want to have the choir singing something related to the spiritual content of the music rather than just wordless vocalizations... though there will be some of that too.

So pithy is good, I think. For now. Though I feel there might be one instance of an outright a cappella text-setting.

I do know that I'm ending the piece with Whitman's Gliding Over All.

[BloodBoal 7,532]

[Jay 27,216]

We have a winner.

[Incanus 5,519]

We have a winner.

It will sound awesome a cappella! I hope GreyPilgrim will use the basso profundo register for this!

Alfred Lord Tennyson's famous Ulysses might have some relevant passages to do with journeys and exploration:

Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Herman Hesse:

At Night On The High Seas

At night, when the sea cradles me

And the pale star gleam

Lies down on its broad waves,

Then I free myself wholly

From all activity and all the love

And stand silent and breathe purely,

Alone, alone cradled by the sea

That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights.

Then I have to think of my friends

And my gaze sinks into their gazes

And I ask each one, silent, alone:

"Are you still mine"

Is my sorrow a sorrow to you, my death a death?

Do you feel from my love, my grief,

Just a breath, just an echo?"

And the sea peacefully gazes back, silent,

And smiles: no.

And no greeting and now answer comes from anywhere.

Translated by James Wright

[Ludwig 1,000]

You might like this one. It includes specific reference to music and the night. It's short-ish too. And "behold" is such a fun word to set to music - we even get two of them.

Moment Musicale

The round moon hangs above the rim
Of silent and blue shadowed trees,
And all the earth is vague and dim
In its blue veil of mysteries.

On such a night one must believe
The Golden Age returns again
With lyric beauty, to retrieve
The world from dreariness and pain.

And down the wooded aisles, behold
What dancers through the dusk appear!
Piping their raptures as of old,
They bring immortal freedom near.

A moment on the brink of night
They tread their transport in the dew,
And to the rhythm of their delight,
Behold, all things are made anew!

- Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

[Incanus 5,519]

Robert Frost:

Stars:

How countlessly they congregate

O’er our tumultuous snow,

Which flows in shapes as tall as trees

When wintry winds do blow!—

As if with keenness for our fate,

Our faltering few steps on

To white rest, and a place of rest

Invisible at dawn, —

And yet with neither love nor hate,

Those stars like some snow-white

Minerva’s snow-white marble eyes

Without the gift of sight.

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

Appreciate all of these. Even the Boal's. Don't stop!

[Incanus 5,519]

Sappho ( Poem is a fragment and has no name as such. Editions: Lobel-Page 34 / Voigt 34 / Diehl 4 (10?) / Bergk 3 / Cox 4)

Αστερεσ μέν ἀμφι κάλαν σελάνναν

ἆιψ ἀπυκρύπτοισι φάεννον εἶδοσ,

ὄπποτα πλήθοισα μάλιστα λάμπησ

ἀργυρια γᾶν

The stars about the fair moon in their turn hide their bright

face when she at about her full lights up all earth with silver.

[Marian Schedenig 5,520]

[Incanus 5,519]

Mr. Sagan might be a good choice for some choral lyrics methinks.

Another one of Tennyson's poems:

Crossing the Bar

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

Abt Vogler

By Robert Browning

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,

Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,

Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed

Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,

Man, brute, reptile, fly,—alien of end and of aim,

Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,—

Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,

And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,

This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise!

Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine,

Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!

And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell,

Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things,

Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,

Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.

And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was,

Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest,

Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass,

Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest:

For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire,

When a great illumination surprises a festal night—

Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire)

Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.

In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth,

Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;

And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth,

As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky:

Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine,

Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star;

Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,

For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.

Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow,

Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast,

Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,

Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last;

Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone,

But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new:

What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;

And what is,—shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.

All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,

All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,

All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,

Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth:

Had I written the same, made verse—still, effect proceeds from cause,

Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;

It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,

Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:—

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,

Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!

And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,

That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.

Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought;

It is everywhere in the world—loud, soft, and all is said:

Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:

And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;

Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;

For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,

That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.

Never to be again! But many more of the kind

As good, nay, better, perchance: is this your comfort to me?

To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind

To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.

Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name?

Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands!

What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same?

Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands?

There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;

The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;

What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;

Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power

Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,

Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;

Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence

For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?

Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?

Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?

Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,

Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe:

But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear;

The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.

Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:

I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.

Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,

Sliding by semitones till I sink to the minor,—yes,

And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,

Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep;

Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,

The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

More great suggestions everyone, I seriously appreciate it.

[KK 3,202]

This is actually a great thread Mike, one that I hope can be used as a useful resource for any of us composers here. I'm starting on a choral piece myself you see, and while the theme differs, there are some neat poems listed here.

And does Mr. Pärt have anything to do with the direction of your coming metamorphosis?

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

I'm glad to hear you'll get use out of it as well.

And Mr. Pärt is not involved in any specific way, but I have an immense respect for him and the way he thinks. Maybe in another ten years, I'll ascend to his level of directness/purity. But for now I don't think I can manage.

[KK 3,202]

As do I. I asked because I wondering if your voice was taking a more spiritual route like Pärt's own work.

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

I suppose it depends on what you mean by spiritual. I've thrown the word around a bit myself.

[Incanus 5,519]

I could whip you up some homegrown profundities on space, time and stars if you'd like monsieur Pilgrim.

[KK 3,202]

I suppose it depends on what you mean by spiritual. I've thrown the word around a bit myself.

I suppose I'm referring a bit to Pärt's style of writing, where his work is minimalist but deeply moving. Not to imply that you'll be writing after him, just in a similar approach based off what you said about becoming more of a minimalist yourself.

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

I suppose it depends on what you mean by spiritual. I've thrown the word around a bit myself.

I suppose I'm referring a bit to Pärt's style of writing, where his work is minimalist but deeply moving. Not to imply that you'll be writing after him, just in a similar approach based off what you said about becoming more of a minimalist yourself.

I would hope that by paring things down, taking more time to consider each note, and using my own homegrown techniques and methods, that a more genuine and effective emotional core will come through, yes.

I could whip you up some homegrown profundities on space, time and stars if you'd like monsieur Pilgrim.

Could it be in Icelandic?!

[Incanus 5,519]

I could whip you up some homegrown profundities on space, time and stars if you'd like monsieur Pilgrim.

Could it be in Icelandic?!

I do know a few languages but Icelandic is not sadly among them. Would Latin suffice?

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

Of course! I'm touched that you'd even offer. Please do if you have the time!