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FANTASIA ON A THEME BY THOMAS TALLIS: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 1585)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958)
Trees clutch night longest,
tugged darkly onto limbs like sleeves
until maroon bark thins to red, then
hammered gold, to shine in early stars
of sun through woodland canopy
A dark incised by grace that cuts
the true from idyll green, leaf by leaf
serrates the trees, the clouds: lost notes
intoned above a melody handed man
to man across the centuries
Hymn and pastoral, a morning song,
especially of birds that rise into the sky
like single notes of praise, sunder night
from day, from meditation on what has
been to benediction for what is yet to be
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