The Plygain

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

263-264

text excerpt

After prayer and praise follows the sermon, a plain setting forth of the blessings of Redemption, a loving exhortation to seize the great opportunity of life which grows more fleeting with each revolving year. And now the benediction is pronounced, and there is a stir among the people…. The carol-singing is to begin… And first Ab Ithel, divested of his gown, standing before the congregation, and his two daughters with him, lead off with a carol, doubly their own in music and in words…. [Then] the old clerk advances, and with him two other singers, a ruddy stripling of twenty, and a weather-bronzed farmer of middle age. They group themselves before the altar-steps. The old man, the central figure, bears in one hand a candle and in the other the manuscript carol. The three bend over the paper. Though the voices are unequal and the tune monotonous, a reality and intensity of purpose stamps the performance with no common interest. Their carol is a long one of old verses connected and completed by original additions. It tells of the Divine dispensation on earth, from the fall of Adam to the Resurrection of the Messiah…. [T]he singers do not modulate their tone or alter their emphasis. The strain rises and closes throughout stanza after stanza in what seems an interminable equal flow. There is no attempt at effect or self-exhibition. It is a duty and a delight, not a task or entertainment…. At length it ceases with a long-drawn Amen…. [I]immediately another singer starts up and bursts into vigorous carol, taking a more joyous note than that of his predecessors, but with as little variety of expression or air. While he sings there is an anxious unfolding of papers and shifting of positions among the audience, and when he subsides satisfied, there is a springing forward of two groups simultaneously, of which one is selected, that of a boy and a girl, and their timid and sweet voices clothe the recurring carol with an interest that checks the longing for the end, inspired sometimes by the male performances. [A]nd again a vocalist rises with a book or manuscript, or with only an exuberant memory; and again, and again, until at last the carol culminates in the votive offering of two stalwart mountaineers, who pursue it in mutual excitement through a maze of amplifications, heedless of passing hours and sleepless eyes.

excerpt from 'The Plygain' pp. 263-264 (408 words)

1532950893374:

1532950893374