FIVE SEQUENCES

The Latin sequence has its beginnings, as an artistic form, in early Christian hymns such as the Vexilla
Regis of Venantius Fortunatus. Venantius modified the classical metres based on syllable quantity to an
accentual metre more easily suitable to be chanted to music in Christian worship. In the ninth century,
Hrabanus Maurus also moved away from classical metres to produce Christian hymns such as Veni
Creator Spiritus.
The name sequentia, on the other hand, came to be bestowed upon these hymns as a result of the works
of Notker Balbulus, who during the tenth century popularized the genre by publishing a collection of
sequentiae in his Liber Hymnorum. Since early sequences were written in rhythmical prose, they were
also called proses (Latin: prosae).
Notker's texts were meant to be sung. In the Latin Mass of the Middle Ages, it became customary to
prolong the last syllable of the Alleluia, while the deacon was ascending from the altar to the ambo, to
sing or chant the Gospel. This prolonged melisma was called the jubilus, jubilatio, or laudes, because of
its jubilant tone. It was also called sequentia, "sequence," because it followed (Latin: sequi) the Alleluia.
Notker set words to this melisma in rhythmic prose for chanting as a trope. The name sequence thus

came to be applied to these texts; and by extension, to hymns containing rhyme and accentual metre. A
collection of sequences was called the Sequentiale.
One well-known sequence, falsely attributed to Notker during the Middle Ages, is the prose text Media
vita in morte sumus ("In the midst of life we are in death"), which was translated by Cranmer and
became a part of the burial service in the funeral rites of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Other
well-known sequences include the ninth-century Swan Sequence, Tommaso da Celano's Dies Irae, St.
Thomas Aquinas' Pange lingua in praise of the Eucharist, the anonymous medieval hymn Ave maris stella
("Hail, star of the sea!"), and the Marian sequence Stabat Mater by Jacopone da Todi. During the Middle
Ages, secular or semi-secular sequences, such as Peter of Blois' Olim sudor Herculis[3][4] ("The labours of
Hercules") were written; the Goliards, a group of Latin poets who wrote mostly satirical verse, used the
form extensively. The Carmina Burana is a collection of these sequences.
Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_(musical_form)>

ALL FLESH IS AS THE GRASS

In memoriam of a Saint whose relic lies at Esztergom...

In 1844, Tischendorf, by then nominally a Privatdozent at Leipzig (his reading of the
overwritten Biblical text of the Ephraemi manuscript, previously thought
irrecoverable, had won him considerable renown), but in fact out in the field and
looking for evidence, visited the monastery of St Catherine on Mt Sinai. In a
wastebasket of discarded papers to be used as fuel for the monastery oven, he
happened to find forty-three leaves of what he recognized (there is something to be
said, in this business, for educating one's powers of recognition) as a copy of the
Septuagint version of the Old Testament, written in early Greek script. The monk in
charge cheerfully informed him that two basketloads of such discarded leaves had
already been fed to the oven.
(Gallery of Philiogists, University of Massachusstts, paragraph 2 :
https://www.umass.edu/wsp/philology/gallery/tischendorf.html)

Alas, my words, no harm (you know me!) meaning

Loyal Wolseys esteem knocked aft, or else learnd
More was not so sweet as twas before;

Now Thames threatened to run with blood

As even the Tiber, which Horace maybe misunderstood
In days of yore. My prickdness knowing,

Chafed however his even more. All England

a keg and ready to alight like Transcaucasian
nomads or Carpathian hordes; or even when noble

Thomas before, let slip a discontent at the kings

crowning, and had his pate slit in the steep ambulatory,
Windows glowing in the purple dusk.

Nay, friend, come back and in the choir

Sweet unction of the censer take:
Kiss, make up, and be at peace: let this be the end
Of our disadvantage and (who knows?) maybe

This paltry dispute to mend our liege gave outpourd blood

At the golden end of the medieval images flood
At Canterbury.

Sequence for the Ascension of Noah

In Mtzalka, unicorn
Presides in sky, and fearsome storm
Sweeps over bleak Pannonian plain
A gurgling thunderstorm of rain:
The surging gutters barely hold
Their load of aqueous surging gold:
Had water through base alchemy
Transmuted thence to what we see:
A splash of speeding four by fours
A smash, as vicious wind with claws
Awaked me from a lazy sleep
Where dreamt I unicornd landscapes steep
In which the main protagonist
Is sure, the self-same poltergeist
O crucifiction of the Christ!
And flutter of the Holy Ghost!

In Hungary this is the worst

Ive seen of rain, which came not close:
No bone is broken, though my heart
Feels strongly Vulcans barbarous dart
Traduces from prose to sweetest art
The weather of a town whose cart
By horse-drawn wagon once did aim
All over the darkling Hungarian plain;
And rain yields off and once again
Normality, like Moorish Spain,
Infltrates a new small reign,
Reminds us Mtzalkas foremost claim
With chariots, to some kind of fame:
(No Eliot ladies come and go,
Speaking of Michelangelo
The skies are grey, the clouds are low)
Giocoso of weird summer day

Is next, I guess, on field of play;

As poet packs his pastels away
And dutifully hurries from scene of the tragedy:
Not home, for he was already there:
But into the poeti-sphere,
A secret kingdom sweet and clear
Reside we all plus poet Where.
Amen. Alleluia.

Sequence for Train at Corpus Christi

Every morning, just on nine

Orange train keens down the line
Flashing sign on road goes red
Washed out ochre flash instead
Bikes and cars metallic sweat
Advent of train thoughs not yet
Look ye unto vanishing point
Regal train will soon anoint

Creaks and rattles, orange-gold

Rusted, vermillion, creaky, old:
Just three bars long is this song
Though mp3 terms surely wrong
When gone dust clatters in the air
Jsef spirit draws from us a tear
Keep right side line you nothing fear
You earn lifes lease another year.
Intoxication of Europe, do not abjure:
Amen. Alleluia!

On Nailing the Ninety-Five Theses in 2016

Ein Feste burg ist unser Gott Luther (1529?)

(Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses, about the Protestant reform, to the
door of the Castle Church, Wittenberg on 31st October, 1517...)

It should cause something of a stir

Once pencils sharp, in a upcoming academic year,
My namesakes strong days date comes round
His ninety-five theses to resound:
And I, today, in exactly my small way
Have made something of the same headway:
The downward middle classes ire
Has drawn in timely fashion my fire;
Of course youll say its just a school
Youre really, Martin, quite a fool
To get het up oer students jape

And take it as some kind of rape...

But Quizleteers and Facebook friends
Ye lap dogs! hear how matter ends!
I blaze through Matzalkas seething rain
With anger coursing through my brain;
With trusty hammer good and strong
I replace the poster where the wrong
Had infested itself with a small graffito
Reminiscent of the Sussex Gruffalo!
A sweetpacked smiling pinkish girl
With whiteboard glinting like a pearl
Resplendent in its power to logos
Where ignorant orphans try to sod us;
Underneath her, snakes a subtle text,
In Latin, Hebrew, Greek, and next
A kind of version for perplext
My fathomless meaning whomso quest
Which, saying, tells that who the board

Portrays is not the binding word

But whiteboard itself is, Roman wax
Suitable alike for cursing cats
And writing E is M C squared:
Hungarian schoolings somewhat weird
While Bach you cannot sing along
Had Luther not first given him the song!
My homeward journey falls less rain
Blue puddles glint in roads, the twain
With footpaths replete in escape from pain
Of Natures wrath, and same again...
O mortals! Wheneer we half transgress
Comes swiftly Heavens chaste redress
We write much, but still make a mess
Or post too frankly, are tedious unless
The Holy Spirit with great power
Cuts through black clouds, makes our hour!
My Luthers anniversary Schrift

I will now confess and now from the record

will lift:
The small reaction that drew my blaze
These watery, watercolour summer days!
When I am gone, Magyaroszg
Will still with its language make wag
The myriad tongues upon the globe
That text in Facebook, draw in Adobe,
And live in three-part mystery
The counterpoint of their lifes history.
Come Propsero, withdraw the strobe!
Ive had my innings at the Globe...
As you from students would be set free
Indulgence, friend, for me....not wrath!
The rain still splashing in the street
My things at home still laid out neat,
For Luthers 499th, lets weep:
Were brothers all, caught out finally in the deep,
Chasing at last our own Old Hundreth!

The Danish Play

To take the carrots off the gas

Or not to, that is the question;
Whether to boldly churn
In seething water that darkling carrot,
Tasty in its middle but deciduous in the bud
And yet blackened by the hand of fate;
Or, as it were, favour the young breasted
Flirtatious carrots: oranger and more erotic
That teem expectantly on the fringes of the pan.

In a sudden lunge, I tamp back the sulphur

Gas. I send Hydra sprinkling like a Liszt piece
Onto and upon my carrots. Like Shakespeare,
I struggle with prepositions.
Meanwhile in a tinkling susurration of climax,
Hydra has flooded my kitchen with water during the
writing.
We ink to err, but carrots boil without a stir!