Feb 2022 colabwiththedead public-domain-lyrics tennyson
When I was a kid my mother and I loved playing a game called "Authors." Similar in concept to Go Fish, the object was to collect cards representing works by famous authors like Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott and Robert Louis Stevenson. We liked the game so much we would buy two decks and write over the titles and authors, adding Hardy Boys mysteries and the like to the mix. Not all of these works were complete books; for instance Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) had one cycle of poems (Idylls of the King) and three poems: Charge Of The Light Brigade, The Brook, and Crossing The Bar.
I remember reading Crossing The Bar and asking my mother what it meant. She said that when a ship went out to sea it would go past a formation called a bar that separated the harbor from the open sea, and kept the worst of tides and storms from affecting the ships in the harbor. When a ship crossed the bar it was out on the open ocean on its way to its next destination. This was good enough for a grade school kid who grew up in a desert and only knew about oceans and harbors what he could learn from books. I don't think I figured until much later that Tennyson's poem is a metaphor for moving from this life to . . . whatever comes after. (Despite the words of the poem, Tennyson himself was somewhat ambivalent on the subject, professing agnosticism late in life. Even so it's a popular piece for funerals and farewells in general.)
I revisited Crossing The Bar tonight and put this simple setting together as part of the annual public-domain "colabwiththedead" challenge, otherwise known (to me anyway) as Dead Lyricists' Society. The middle interlude is intended to be filled in by a cello or similar instrument. I tried to put something together using Band-InA-Box's "Record MIDI" feature but the result sounded bad enough to have killed the poet, and the "melody" BIAB generated on its own was even worse. Better no break than an unlistenable one.
(Crossing the Bar (1889) 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.
@paulroe Feb 2022
Really nice voice. Unique vantage point and timbre. To an absolutely beautiful work by Tennyson. I love his simpler works:
Break Break Break, Crossing the Bar, the Eagle, Ulysses and such. When he merges sound and sense at his highest levels, his stuff is up there with the best in the language. He forges ahead through the Victorian and into the modern age, but takes with him something unmistakable of Wordsworth in his shorter lyrics.
Very enjoyable!
@keithcuts Feb 2022
Quite nice
@gmcgath Feb 2022
Nice setting. I notice some reminiscences of the slow movement of Beethoven's "Pathetique" sonata, which are entirely appropriate to the subject matter.
@vegansongs Feb 2022
Beautifully suited music, doubly poetic.
@mhorning Feb 2022
He is most definitely talking about... transition to what comes after.
Nicely done, especially given the challenge of how Tennyson places so many beats on the third line of each stanza.
@tseaver Feb 2022
Nice collab! One of my favorite of the poet's, along with "Ulysses." The poignancy of the last stanza is terrific.