I thought I should finish my Easter sequence of music with my favourite Easter Carol.\u00a0 There’s something about this one that has always spoken to me, even in my pagan \/ agnostic days.\u00a0 The harmonies are beautiful and haunting, the melody has a lovely simplicity to it, and the words are just gorgeous.\u00a0 And maybe a trifle pagan in a Corn God sort of way (looking at you, James Fraser), though I rather think that’s a deliberate subversion of the pagan imagery on the part of the poet.<\/p>\n
(Much like the way the early Church subverted large chunks of existing pagan festivals into their holy day celebrations.\u00a0 There’s this fabulous letter from one of the early Popes that basically tells missionaries that if the people are used to having a feast on this day, you should let them have the feast, and dedicate it to a saint, and if they are used to worshiping in this place, you should dedicate the place, and call it a church.\u00a0 He doesn’t *quite* say that they’ll never notice the difference, but there is definitely the implication that if you let them keep all their other habits, you’ll be able to quietly slip in the Christianity without anyone getting upset…)<\/p>\n
But I digress…<\/p>\n
[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=27p98aLPZPI&w=420&h=315]Isn’t it lovely?\u00a0 Here are the words – somehow, they always bring me to the verge of tears… though the sleep deprivation is probably helping with that (2 1\/2 hours of Catholic mass last night was not wholly unexpected, but I really didn’t need another 2 hours from the Wesleyans this morning.\u00a0 There is such a thing as excess…).<\/p>\n
Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
\nWheat that in dark earth many days hath lain.
\nLove lives again, that with the dead hath been:Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.<\/p>\n
In the grave they laid him, Love who men had slain,
\nThinking that never he would wake again.
\nLaid in the earth, like grain that sleeps unseen:
\nLove is come again, like wheat that springs up green.<\/p>\n
Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
\nHe that for three days in a grave had lain.
\nQuick from the dead my living Lord is seen:
\nLove is come again, like wheat that springs up green.<\/p>\n
When our hearts are wintry, weary or in pain
\nThy love can call us back to life again.
\nFields of our hearts, that dead and bare have been:Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I thought I should finish my Easter sequence of music with my favourite Easter Carol.\u00a0 There’s something about this one that has always spoken to me, even in my pagan \/ agnostic days.\u00a0 The harmonies are beautiful and haunting, the melody has a lovely simplicity to it, and the words are just gorgeous.\u00a0 And maybe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[135,201,202,217,449,521,525],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-music","tag-easter","tag-easter-carols","tag-ely-cathedral-choir","tag-love-is-come-again","tag-noel-nouvelet","tag-now-the-green-blade-riseth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}