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Provença

Chapter 24: NIGHT LITANY
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About This Book

A compact sequence of lyrics and narrative poems reimagines medieval troubadour and classical voices through a modernist lens. The collection mixes stylized adaptations and persona pieces, ranging from jaunty ballads to mournful elegies, and tests forms such as sestina, sonnet, and canzone. Themes of love, loss, memory, exile, and the craft of song recur amid dense, allusive imagery. Shifts in diction and perspective create a chorus of historical and mythic echoes, prioritizing formal experimentation and vocal variety over linear narrative while inviting attentive, cross-temporal reading.

NIGHT LITANY

O DIEU, purifiez nos cœurs!
Purifiez nos cœurs!
Yea, the lines hast thou laid unto me
in pleasant places,
And the beauty of this thy Venice
hast thou shown unto me
Until is its loveliness become unto me
a thing of tears.
O God, what great kindness
have we done in times past
and forgotten it,
That thou givest this wonder unto us,
O God of waters?
O God of the night,
What great sorrow
Cometh unto us,
That thou thus repayest us
Before the time of its coming?
O God of silence,
Purifiez nos cœurs,
Purifiez nos cœurs,
For we have seen
The glory of the shadow of the
likeness of thine handmaid,
Yea, the glory of the shadow
of thy Beauty hath walked
Upon the shadow of the waters
In this thy Venice.
And before the holiness
Of the shadow of thy handmaid
Have I hidden mine eyes,
O God of waters.
O God of silence,
Purifiez nos cœurs,
Purifiez nos cœurs,
O God of waters,
make clean our hearts within us
And our lips to show forth thy praise,
For I have seen the
Shadow of this thy Venice
Floating upon the waters,
And thy stars
Have seen this thing, out of their far courses
Have they seen this thing,
O God of waters,
Even as are thy stars
Silent unto us in their far-coursing,
Even so is mine heart
become silent within me.
Purifiez nos cœurs,
O God of the silence,
Purifiez nos cœurs,
O God of waters.