Story Behind the Song
I first read the poem, "The Forsaken Merman" as part of an English Literature course. I was instantly captivated by the story and by the musical quality and rhythm of the words. I didn't begin writing the music until a couple years later, but the seed of an idea was there.
I was driving home from work one day in January of 2002, when all of a sudden a new melody popped into my head. I remembered the Matthew Arnold poem, though "Come away, dear children" were the only words I could recall specifically. I recalled the rhythm of the piece, and the melody was definitely there. I pulled over to the side of the road and wrote down the melody on a piece of blank paper, quickly scratching the staff lines in so I wouldn't forget anything. That melody became the the chorus of this song. When I got home, I pulled the poem off the shelf, and a few hours later I had the chords, the full melody, and the text for the song.
I spent the next three months working on the piece as a project for my composition studies at Trinity Western University. I worked under the guidance of Dr. David Squires, who deserves a lot of credit for how the piece turned out. A year later, I finally began recording it. The recording process took almost four months. In total, this song was over 18 months and countless hours in the making.
One day I hope a symphony will play it.
Lyrics
Come, dear children, let us away
Now my brothers, call from the bay,
Call from the bay
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!
Call her once yet, call her before you go -
Call her once in a voice that she will know:
Children’s voices wild with pain
Call her yet once then come away
This way, this way!
‘Mother dear we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and spray.
Mother dear we cannot stay
The sea goes restless and we must away.’
Come away, dear children, call no more!
One last look at the little grey church on the shore
She will not come though you call all day;
Come dear children, and let us away,
This way, this way!
Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the bell, and she went away?
Once she sat with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the little one sat on her knee.
She combed its bright hair, and tended it well
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She said: ‘I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the shore today.
‘Twill be Easter time in the world - ah me!
And I’ll lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee.’
I said: ‘Go up, dear heart, through the waves
Say thy prayer, and come back to the caves!’
She smiled, and went up to the bay
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Come away, dear children, call no more
Come away down, down to the depths of the sea
Here came a mortal, but faithless was she!
And alone dwell forever the kings of the sea
Lonely, lonely
She sits at her wheel in the town
Singing most joyfully, hear the sound.
‘Joy, O joy, for the child with its toy!
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun and the light of the sun!’
So she sings her fill most joyfully,
Till the spindle drops from her hand,
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand to the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
For the cold strange eyes
Of her little Mermaiden
And the gleam of her golden hair.
Children, at midnight,
When soft the wind blows,
When pale lies the moonlight,
When spring tides are low;
We’ll go to the bay
Up the glistening beaches we’ll hie,
Over the seaweed the ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side -
And then come back down.
Come away, dear children, call no more
Come away down, down to the depths of the sea
There dwells a loved one, but cruel is she!
She left lonely forever the Kings of the sea,
Lonely, lonely
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