Good Lord! I never knew my diction's so bad. I guess it is due to my Kentucky speech, or that the melody moves along fairly fast on that little refrain. I wrote the poem first, as a poem, and soon it sang itself to the old "Nonesuch" tune. For the little refrain I wrote a melody to match the main one. That is the high part, "And sounding all around a sound;" it's not a real part of the "Nonesuch" melody. NONE BUT ONE (Jean Ritchie) Across the plain there moves a sway, It moves with human sound; And some do walk and some do run, Some fall upon the ground. And some do stop to help the weak, Some trample on the others And some do laugh and some do weep- And all of them are brothers Refrain: And sounding all around a sound' Around and everywhere; And none but one can understand And none but one can hear- I mine and I thine, father, mother, son, I me and I thee, and all of us are one. I saw four travelers in a dream All in the wind and weather; The chain they carried in their hands It bound them all together. And some were yellow, some were red And older than the others, And some were black and some were white, And all of them were brothers. Repeat refrain. While I have your attention.....! I have never claimed to be a poet- not what a Poet would call a Poet. But, most of my written songs have started out as poems, just random observations and commenting on things I have noticed in life around me as I go. Anyway- this is only an excuse for giving you-all another. On this the last day of May, here's an especial May poem; I call it May Day Day. It has been recorded, on a Pacific Cascade album, Jean Ritchie At Home,which I fear is out of circulation now: Cold and dark the winter; in March it snows again. Through the rains of April, Spring comes stealing in- Smiling o'er the meadows in the rising light of day, Beauty is reborn again every first of May. Cho: And when I'm walkin with my darlin on a May Day Day, Walkin with my darlin on a May Day Day, O there's nothin much a-doin, and there's little for to say- But O my heart is happy on a May Day Day! Folks are cold and distant, the world's about to freeze. Never has the world known harder times than these. Suffering world, forgive me, and grant me just a day- I cannot help but hope again, every first of May.
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