PLAINSONG MOTIF

PLAINSONG MOTIF

My life – an antiphon [1] intoned today –

whose psalm shall keep on singing through the years,

whose motif finds recurrence sounding sweet

to rise in joy or fall in cadences of tears.

Its words are few but weighty with a gift

of triple consecration [2] fully made,

words unadorned by poetry or prose

but pregnant with an abnegation, sober, staid.

To chant my chaste and chastening plainsong

I must pass by earth’s richest melody,

blend all my will and wishes into One,

and learn the Virgin Mother’s strong antiphony. [3]

To sing a purer praise at purer dawns

I must pass through the nocturns [4] of the night,

and gather freer rhythms wrought of peace

to celebrate at prime the liturgies [5] of Light.

When I have closed my final vesperal, [6]

Iintone my nuptial song – I live though dead,

And fallen from my faithful hands the lyre.

I dream another rose-crowned day, with compline [7] said.

Sister Sada Marie

In: Carmel Bride. 1957:15

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[1] Antiphon: A verse sung by one choir in response to another

[2] The three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience made by the nun-poet

[3] Antiphony: opposing sound which creates a harmonious whole with the sound it seeks to oppose

[4] Nocturn: one of the divisions, usually three, of the office of matins, prayers recited at midnight or daybreak

[5] Liturgies: forms of religious worship

[6] Vesperal: an office book containing psalms, antiphons and canticles sung at Vespers or Evensong

[7] Compline:  the last religious service of the day, completing the service of the canonical hours