O wanderer, pausing at the door,
The wearier thou of life, the more all this domain is thine.
Enter. The depths of music fill
These echoing spaces
silence turns to prayer.
Earth's bitter voices cannot speak
Where Heaven's is heard alone.
//
I felt the glories of the ancient shrine wrap me about
Here musing souls for centuries have prayed,
What throngs, what aspirations people the dreamy regions of the Past
O holy Past! O Future!
I stand between in God's eternity.
//
It is too calm to be a dream,
Too gravely sweet, too full of power,
Beyond the hope of yesterday,
Beyond the faith that dared to pray,
Yet not beyond the love that heard,
I breathe a golden atmosphere of solemn joy,
Within, above, and all around,
The chime of bells.
//
We have heard many sermons, you and I,
And many more may hear,
But few like this one
seldom do we see the pattern melt in light,
With eyes of soul and not of intellect
We wandered far that night, dear, you and I.
The summer silence and the solitude
Were only filled with God.
Two sea-birds came
And cried
(No profanation of the stillness, but added sanctity).
we hear many sermons
The poor words fall and drown;
But this, whose speech was silence, this has stirred
The stream of years, and aye it will be heard.
//
Alas! my heart, where is thy absent God?
Arise and search, nor languish hopeless here,
His sacred word invites me to his feet.
The voice of mercy, O be the heavenly accents spoke to me!
God of my life,
O speak and give me comfort
(O let my soul recall her comforts past)
//
What is it you ask me, darling?
All my stories, child, you know.
//
I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy
Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God,
My voice shalt thou hear in the morning
Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness
For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness
But thou wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass her as with a shield.
feat. Anna Rebecca Hunt (‘In Milan Cathedral’), Julia Ward Howe (‘In Cologne Cathedral’), Frances Ridley Havergal (‘Easter Dawn’), Ada Cambridge (‘A Sermon’), Anne Steele (‘Desiring the gracious presence of God’), Adelaide Anne Proctor (‘Pictures in the Fire’), Psalm 5. Exploring a lot of words and poetry today at the beginning of making a choir piece............ if I do it like this it’ll be the most cut-and-paste and especially cut I’ve ever done, but still not yet a collage.... at many times it seems like my goal was to destroy the rhythm and rhyme ah... Along a theme and mainly, again, just picking the most beautiful and speaking phrases...