Song of the Day - 10th October 2024

Today's Song of the Day is a sacred anthem for Michaelmas, which is actually on 29th September. But as I didn't start this site until 2nd October, you get to see it today!

This is a setting of Henry Constable's poem "To Saint Michael The ArchAngel".

Henry Constable graduated from St John's College, Cambridge in 1580. A Catholic, he spent much of his adult life in exile in France, although returned to England surreptitiously, only to be caught and imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1604. He was subsequently placed under house arrest, and deprived of his inheritance. He was again imprisoned in the Fleet prison on 11 February 1608, and on 31 July 1610 he was granted licence to leave England. Constable died at Liège on 9 October 1613.

NB: I have been unable to ascertain exactly when this poem was written. 

Get the music for this song for free - find out how here.


To Saint Michael The Archangel

By Henry Constable


When as the prince of angels puffed with pride

stirred his seditious spirits to rebel:

God chose for chief, his champion Michael:

and gave him charge the host of Heaven to guide.


And when the angels of the rebel’s side

vanquished in battle from their glory fell,

the pride of Heaven became the drake of hell,

and in the dungeon of despair was tied.


This dragon since let loose, God’s church assailed,

and she by help of Michael’s sword prevailed.

Who ever tried adventures like this knight?


Which general of Heaven, hell overthrew;

for such a lady as God’s spouse did fight:

and such a monster as the devil subdue.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Song of the Day - 11th November

Image
Today's Song of the Day is a tribute to Martinmas, a beautiful celebration known as the Festival of Compassion. St. Martin of Tours (died 397) was a Roman soldier who was baptized as an adult and became a bishop in Gaul. He is best known for the tale whereby he cut his cloak in half with his sword, to give half to a beggar who was dressed in only rags in the depth of winter. That night Martin had a vision of Jesus Christ wearing the half-cloak. For this special festival, I have chosen a moving poem titled “Compassion” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. It beautifully captures the limitless compassion of Christ, reflecting the very essence of Martin's noble actions. Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919) was an inspiring American author and poet. Her works include the collection Poems of Passion and the evocative poem "Solitude," which reminds us, “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.” Her autobiograph...
Read more

Adele stole my song title!

Image
I don't have a Song of the Day for you today but I thought I would share a story from back in 2009. I was engaged and thought it would be a sweet idea to write a song for my husband-to-be and have it professionally recorded. So I wrote this song which I called "Someone Like You." I practised it and perfected it, and organised musicians to play the guitar and drum parts, got it all recorded, even taught it to my youth choir so they could sing it at my wedding, and then found out some young upstart named Adele had also written and released a song called "Someone Like You"! Ah well, it's not like you can copyright a song title—which is a good thing because if she sued ME for breach of copyright I am not sure how to prove I thought of it first. I don't even know if I DID think of it first!! It's a bit different from the Songs for all Seasons, but I hope you like it. Who knows, if my music gets published, this song might get picked up by some famous balla...
Read more