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The Harmonies of Holst
While doing errands, driving roundabout,
I listen to the classic music station.
An orchestra plays a courtly lyric song.
What can it be? I know it well, but how?
Perhaps a ballad handed down through ages?
I miss the tranquil host’s informed announcement,
but hear two curious words: Jupiter, jollity.
(A lovely lilting Latinate word, jollity!)
YouTube to the rescue. A simple search.
The Planets, Holst. A famous piece, though I
have never paid it mind. I scroll on through,
without success. Cavorting trumpets. Wait!
The noble theme appears, as a sun from heaven
illumines inky roiling thunderclouds.
My mind becomes enveloped by its rhythms,
the placid dignity, as of grazing sheep,
a green-green meadow verged by serried hedges.
Sometimes I hum aloud, then ululate,
gesticulate, conduct a fictive choir.
This piece reminds me of a cherished hymn,
In the Bleak Midwinter, Rosetti’s couplets
set by Holst. His gorgeous airs are made
to showcase gorgeous poetry. And now,
I understand. A patriotic anthem.
The Brits have sung it for a century,
I Vow to Thee My Country, all those state
festivities, Winchester Abbey pomp,
Royals singing, Willis organ swelling.
How did Holst compose this hallowed paean?
A happy fluke. A mothballed Spring-Rice poem,
financial stress, a nonnegotiable deadline:
ah hah! my well-tried “Jupiter” tune will do.
Fortuitous, such synchronicity,
as a psalm of David weds a gnomic verse
to its beloved, a resonating lyre.
Such Proustian “little phrases” seem God-inspired,
afloat in empyrean ethers, from angels’ tongues
to a genius melodist’s ears. We overhear,
absorb their healing balm, our souls renewed.
.
.
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Mary Jane Myers resides in Springfield, Illinois. She is a retired JD/CPA tax specialist. Her debut short story collection Curious Affairs was published by Paul Dry Books in 2018.
What a lovely poem, Mary Jane! I’m also very familiar with the melody and never knew its origin. Thank you for the lyrical lesson and for the video clip.
JD
Thank you for your kind comments. I am trying to describe a common experience I have–I hear snippets of a familiar musical piece that somehow means something to me emotionally–there are memories (also not quite clear at first) associated with it. Yet I can’t “place” the music. Since I like to “catalog” things, I become somewhat preoccupied with tracking down the particulars of the music.
Most sincerely Mary Jane
Mary Jane, as one who appreciates many types of music, I
really enjoy poems like this. You have conveyed an appealing,
descriptive message about the power of music.
Janice
Thank you for your kind comments. I am a classical music lover. I don’t like the bland “elevator music” versions that we hear constantly in public spaces (music to lull us into relaxing our guards, and spending too much money!)
Most sincerely Mary Jane
You are right, Mary Jane, the Jupiter melody may be “a ballad handed down through ages.” Holst is known to have worked with folk songs, and I can tell you from having sung this hymn tune that he named “Thaxted”: the rhythm is irregular and not easy to teach to a choir. There are some surprising sixteenth notes! Yet it is the kind of stirring folk melody that people hearing it over and over naturally pick up.
“I Vow to Thee, My Country” is a poem of deep patriotism, more perfectly expressive of love for one’s country, I believe, than any of our American national songs. And that’s partly because verse 2 moves into thoughts of “another country,” or heaven. We do have the tune called Thaxted in American hymnals, paired with words that seem to flow naturally from the final stanza of Sir Cecil Spring Rice’s poem “Urbs Dei” (City of God). It says “we may not see the king” of that city. Frances Ridley Havergal lived and wrote a bit earlier than Sir Cecil, but seems to follow on in her poem of an unseen king:
O merciful Redeemer,
Whom yet unseen we love,
O Name of might and favor,
All other names above,
O bringer of salvation
Who wondrously hast wrought
Thyself the revelation
Of love beyond all thought,
We worship Thee and bless Thee,
To Thee alone we sing,
We praise Thee and confess Thee
Our gracious Lord and King.
Look for “O Merciful Redeemer” in your hymnal, or try singing this along with music in the video you have so kindly brought to our notice with your own poem of discovery.
Margaret
Thank you for this additional information. I’m wondering: perhaps I’ve heard/sung the Thaxted hymn in a Roman Catholic context many years ago–but I’m not sure exactly where or when. On Sundays, I attend a High Latin Roman Catholic Mass (1962 Missal). Our choir director is a Gregorian chant specialist who trained in Rome. He includes a closing hymn for the congregation to sing. For reasons unknown to me, he seems to favor 19th century Church of England hymns (e.g., Raise High the Cross).
Margaret: I’d love to discuss poetic craft with you privately. My e-mail address is maryjmyers@verizon.net I’d appreciate so much hearing from you directly.
Most sincerely Mary Jane
Thank you, Mary Jane. I’ll respond soon, but wanted to take the earliest opportunity to let you know I saw this.
Mary Jane, you have almost certainly heard this sung at Catholic Mass at some point as “Oh God Beyond All Praising.” One of my very favorites. It’s used at all major diocesan events in Charlotte, where I first heard this version (think ordinations and other major celebrations involving the bishop).
I first heard–and was deeply moved by–the tune at a friend’s wedding years ago as “Jerusalem the Golden,” out of a Protestant hymnal.
I’ve read this over several times and am having fun trying to pin down why it’s “sticky” to me. I do not mean sticky in the tactile sense with it’s possible negative connotations, I mean it as my kids refer to songs that “stick” in their heads.
What I’ve come up with in this highly enjoyable piece is the layering of both song structure and feeling with the narrative of our days. The narrative allows the feeling of the song to enter the feelings of the speaker, thus the reader. That’s what I like most about this poem.
Happy to read and re-read. What an opulent generation we are!
Daniel Thank you for your perceptive comment about the way our minds “layer” the structure of music with our own feelings. Yes, in my poem I am attempting to describe the “the way our mind works” when we’re listening to music. I’m pleased that my small effort is at least partially successful in describing this mysterious process.
Most sincerely,
Mary Jane