1. My heart delights in Christ my lord
my lips rejoice to sing
my mouth and tongue wake to proclaim
the glories of my king.
For he has saught and reconciled
the dying soul finds life
the guilty now he calls his child
my heart delights in Christ.
2. My heart delights in Christ my lord
his wonders fill my mind
The king of all rose from his throne
this sullen heart to find
How could he give up honor, ease
for trouble, pain and strife?
The cold and broken, warm and whole
my heart delights in Christ.
3. My heart delights in Christ my lord
And I will sing his praise
The weight of guilt, the strength of sin
are nothing to his grace.
Forgiven, blameless, pardoned, free
the dead are raised to life
from now until eternity
My heart delights in Christ
sar 2010
I like it. And not hard to reuse a tune from the Irish stable if you want. 'My Hope', for instance, could work, as long as you like repeating every fourth line. And there was something else I sang last night that scans too, but I've forgotten now...
ReplyDeleteGood to see you're relaxing on the holiday, anyway :)
saught? I like it, but what does that mean?
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's a first draft. 'Saught' means looked for. But it doesn't flow into the next line. Originally, the end of verse 1 was quite different (better) but I rejigged it to get around a theological issue (which no one probably would have noticed except me).
ReplyDeleteAnthony - it is lovely to be able to stay up till midnight working up an idea without anything else more pressing! [The meter is 8686 - about as common as you get.)
I think the spelling is "sought" - at least you didn't have "sort". :-) That and people using "draw" instead of "drawer" get up my nose. I expect that the error comes from pronunciation, like the mistaken use of "of" instead of "'ve" as in "could of" instead of "could've".
ReplyDeleteAll that being said, fabulous work for a 'draft'; I had slight difficulty with lines 3 & 4 of the 2nd stanza but I think that was because my eye skipped a word so I had to re-read it.
Pretty impressive first draft! I think this one should make it...
ReplyDelete...keep the good stuff coming... rich...
ReplyDeleteThis is nice - I love the "sullen heart". Publishing a draft implies a request for corrections? Hope you don't mind... "For he has sought and reconciled" needs a subject - what has he sought and reconciled? - and "this sullen heart to find" is inverted - "to find this sullen heart" would be better but need to adjust the rhyme.
ReplyDeleteHope you don't end up getting this twice. This is a good song, I especially like the "sullen heart". Do you post drafts because you want comments, or only for affirmation purposes?
ReplyDeleteI post drafts because I'm an extrovert and something isn't really done till it's shared with others. 95% of what I write goes no further than publication here - so I feel like it gives a purpose to hours of work. I like both comments and affirmation! (I take comments seriously - I rarely use words others suggest but try to fix up weaknesses that people identify. Changes have been made to songs that have gone on to be recorded based on blog comments.)
ReplyDeleteOK then, take affirmation from previous post, I do really like it. Many songs we sing in church are less elegant than this one. I'm always terrified to release a new song because I'm afraid people will tell me they hate it.
ReplyDeleteYou already picked up the unfinished sentence in "he has sought and reconciled". "This sullen heart to find" - you've inverted the sentence to make the rhyme, so it sounds stilted - "to find this sullen heart". But of course then you need to change line 2. "My lips rejoice to sing"? Not sure, maybe "rejoice" and "sing" are too close in meaning? That's all, the rest flows nicely and is beautifully constructed.
So much of poetry/songwriting is personal taste, so of course this is just my own highly fallible opinion.
Good luck with the foreign technology and take care of yourselves down there!
Yes, sullen heart really struck me nicely. I like the gist of the song a lot too. The weak area, I think, is all the commas in verse 2. It's very lovely though!
ReplyDelete