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Be An Example To Believers
(1 Tm 4, 12)

The score sets the timing,
The heart-beat, the breathing,
Of notes in their flow,
Some fast and some slow,
Now falling, now climbing,
Subsiding or seething,

As fixed or erratic
The melody (twiner
Of notes in a scale)
Goes forging a trail
By steps now chromatic,
Now major, now minor,

While--voices all weaving
In choral invention--
The harmony gains
Through dissonant strains
To climax, relieving
The build-up of tension.

The score in its beauty
Is read and restated
By each who performs,
Translating its norms,
So freedom and duty
Are perfectly mated.

Tight pattern, yet ample
For all its receivers,
A score they may play,
Each one in his way . . .
Be thus an example
To all the believers.


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