:::Rain::::

＊ Hark! The Herald Angels sing

"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is a Christmas carol that first appeared in 1739 in the collection Hymns and Sacred Poems, having been written by Charles Wesley. A somber man, Wesley had requested and received slow and solemn music for his lyrics, not the joyful tune expected today. Moreover, Wesley's original opening couplet is "Hark! how all the welkin rings / Glory to the King of Kings".

The popular version is the result of alterations by various hands, notably by Wesley's co-worker George Whitefield who changed the opening couplet to the familiar one, and by Felix Mendelssohn. A hundred years after the publication of Hymns and Sacred Poems, in 1840, Mendelssohn composed a cantata to commemorate Johann Gutenberg's invention of the printing press, and it is music from this cantata, adapted by the English musician William H. Cummings to fit the lyrics of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, that propels the carol known today.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDPwNPAV6tA

＊ Whiteman’s Quotes à Leaves of Grass

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; / Rise up -- for you the flag is flung -- for you the bugle trills, / ...Here Captain! dear father! / This arm beneath your head! / It is some dream that on the deck, / You've fallen cold and dead. (Whitman, 284)

＊ Elegyà悼亡詩

In literature, an elegy (from the Greek word for "lament") is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.

＊ Onomatopoeia à擬聲字

Definition:

1.      the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (as buzz, hiss)

2.      the use of words whose sound suggests the sense 

Origin:

Late Latin, from Greek onomatopoiia, from onomat-, onomaname + poiein to make — more at poet

First Known Use: circa 1577

Examples:

1.      The sheep went, “Baa.”

2.      The best part about music class is that you can bang on the drum.

3.      It is not unusual for a dog to bark when visitors arrive.

4.      Silence your cellphone so that it does not beep during the movie.

5.      Dad released a belch from the pit of his stomach.

6.      The bridge collapsed creating a tremendous boom.

7.      The large dog said, “Bow-wow!”

8.      Are you afraid of things that go bump in the night?

9.      My brother can burp the alphabet.

10.  Both bees and buzzers buzz.

11.  The cash register popped open with a heart warming ca-ching.

12.  The bird’s chirp filled the empty night air.

13.  Her heels clacked on the hardwood floor.

14.  The clanging pots and pans awoke the baby.

15.  If you want the red team to win, clap your hands right now!

＊ mourn à mournful

Definition:

1. Feeling or expressing sorrow or grief; sorrowful.

2. Causing or suggesting sadness or melancholy: the mournful sound of a train whistle.

Examples:

1.      He is the sole survivor, and was the only one leftto communicate the mournful  intelligence to thenearest settlement.

2.      From beneath the boat, a sighing, almostmournful  sound rises into the air.

＊  free verse

Free verse is an open form (see Poetry analysis) of poetry. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.

Example of free verse:

《Fog by Carl Sandburg》

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

＊ Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18) by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

※    shade 陰暗à延伸為雙關語用法：「鬼魂」

＊ "Sigh No More, Ladies..." by William Shakespeare

(From "Much Ado about Nothing")

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh nor more;

    Men were deceivers ever;

One foot in sea and one on shore,

    To one thing constant never;

        Then sigh not so,

        But let them go,

    And be you blithe and bonny;

Converting all your sounds of woe

    Into. Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo,

    Or dumps so dull and heavy;

The fraud of men was ever so,

    Since summer first was leavy.

        Then sigh not so,

        But let them go,

    And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

    Into. Hey, nonny, nonny.

＊ Emily Dickinson à slant rhyme

Definition of slant rhyme:

Use of words that do not rhyme exactly but have a similar sound.

Examples of slant rhyme:

1.      From: Hope is the Thing with Feathers, by Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all,

2.      From: Lines Written in Dejection, by William Butler Yeats

When have I last looked on

The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies

Of the dark leopards of the moon?

All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,..

＊ Art is Long, and Time is fleeting.

à藝術是永恆的，時光則是稍縱即逝。

From “A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)