Hail, O Star that brightly pointest toward the port of heaven, thou to whom as lowly maiden God’s own Son was given. When the holy salutation Gabriel had spoken, peace was truly shed upon us, Eva's bonds were broken.
Bound by Satan's cruel fetters, health and vision needing, God will aid us, God will light us at thy gentle pleading. Jesus' tender, humble Mother, make thy supplication unto him who rightly chose thee at his incarnation;
that, O spotless, matchless Maiden, passing meek and lowly, thy dear, precious Son may make us blameless, chaste, and holy. So now, on this earthly journey, aid our weak endeavor. Till in joy we gaze on Jesus, and rejoice for ever.
Just a tweaking of the (6.6.6.6) Athelstan Riley translation...which itself is, as Chris McC. once pointed out, a bit “precious”, but there are some nice spots, too, I think.
It’s often said that we could use more Marian songs/hymns....maybe this would work?
There is a doxology that doesn’t fit into the 8.6.8.6 D scheme....are there any trochaic 8.6.8.6 tunes out there?
As a side note, I've never quite understood the "8.7.8.7 D"-type indications I see at the bottom of some hymns. I figure it's an indication of the number of notes, or number of syllables, or number of beats… not sure. Would welcome any clarification here.
8 syllables on the first line 7 syllables on the 2nd line 8 syllables on the 3rd line 7 syllables on the 4th line then “D”ouble the above, and you end up with one strophe of the text.
What that system leaves out is the foot: iambic/trochaic, usually, but there could be dactyls, anapests, .... others?
Meter markings in hymnals refer to the text, not the notes in the tune. Tune that were written in a certain meter, but with multiple notes on some of the original text can be easily adapted to texts with more syllables. It is very important to give any such marriage of text and tune a test sing to make sure it's not too clumsy. IMO, a lot of this would be alleviated by a wider use of hymnody.
In this context, "meter" refers to the structure of the text only, without regard to any particular musical setting or its time signature.
"Joy to the World" and "Amazing Grace" have the same meter: 8 syllables in the first line; 6 in the next; then 8; then 6. So you can swap their tunes and they do fit. Sometimes the results of such an exchange are just good for a laugh, but often enough, the results are decent, so it gives your congregation another text to sing on a familiar tune.
Felipe -
I think this metrical version is very fine, indeed; and, not at all (as you suggest) 'precious'.
From where did you cull it?
What does 'just a tweaking' mean? If you altered it, it seems you did a nice bit of work.
Still, could we see it 'untweaked'?
Though some of the punctuation is questionable, the grammatical structure is wonderful - as is the cadence and imagery.
This is quite obviously not the work of a contemporary poet.
Mark: "Joy to the World is 4/4, right (or perhaps 2/4)? And Amazing Grace is 3/4."
No, not quite. Hymns have two parts, text and tune. The text is "Joy To The World ..." with Common Meter (86.86). The tune is ANTIOCH with music in 2/4. The text is "Amazing Grace ..." with Common Meter. The tune is NEW BRITAIN with music in 3/4.
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