Post by Bella Chimere on Sept 26, 2009 16:07:31 GMT -5
The sky above the roof is calm and sweet:
A tree above the roof
Bends in the heat
A bell from out the blue
Drowsily rings:
A bird from out the blue
Plaintively sings.
Ah G-d! A life is here,
Simple and fair,
Murmurs of strife are here
Lost in the air
Why dost thou weep, O heart,
Poured out in tears?
What hast thou done, O heart,
With thy spent years?[/center]
The Sky Above the Roof can be thought if in many different ways. The main way is that the composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, was sitting in jail and looking out his window, seeing what he had lost over the years; and never got a chance to take advantage of such outlooks. Another way that it can be seen, would be before a death trial, and seeing that the lyrics to this song was already a French poem by Paul Verlaine, that it was dated in earlier years before or during the Post-Romantic Period which was around the twentieth century. The way that I see it is that of a trial, that of someone living his last second, his last moment within the world and thinking about the choices he has made. Of course, there is a point that the man would be in jail before such a trial, so it would be the time of what he sees.
I picture my self waking up, or perhaps getting up after a long night with nothing more than a heavy heart. My eyes are tired and they feel none other than the weights of my eyelids, hoping this day wouldn’t arrive. I know I had done something wrong and I needed to take every moment that I have for granted that is given. I look out my window that is gated with vertical iron bars and see what is around me. The day is coming and the night is nearly gone. The brightness is prevailing against the midnight sky, changing it to a murky red. I look out into the distance and see a lonely roof- of course there are many roofs for I am within a city, but this one is vastly different from the others. It sheds an emotion of something dark and mysterious, but it doesn’t take away from what’s above it.
As the sky turned from its murky red, it appeared to be the clearest blue sky I had ever seen in all my life; the feeling of something angelic coming towards me, coming towards the world in such a perfect blue. It seems calm and forevermore relaxing. The culprit behind the arête sky had risen past the many small buildings, creating the heat throughout the city. It began to get hotter and hotter as each second would pass. I looked around the city from left to right and found myself staring at a tree that was above the same roof that I had loved to see every morning. The more I stare at it, the more I think my eyes are slacking its usual vision and the tree is moving. But I realize it is only the heat making it bend in an unusual way.
Morning has finally arrived. The silence that had once filled the city began to descend. The sound of the markets opening and even the humid wind making it’s blatant sound was filling the city. I heard the bells ring from a distance from a bell tower that rang every time the morning had arrived. The sound was very soft, but also hypnotizing at the same time. A bird had passed my window with its soft, but annoying chirp, and it broke my hypnotic stare at the clock tower. But as annoying as their calls are within the morning, I learn to appreciate as much as I can during my last days. I begin to know that this is what life was to be about, what G-d had given, what I should have taken. Everything would have been simple and my life become fair if it wasn’t for what I had done. But it seems that I have lost everything in only a breath of air.
My heavy heart burns for the passion that I will once never have ever again. My eyes are suddenly wet and I think to myself why I have done such a thing. Tears began flowing down my cheeks and soon at the end of its trail, fall into nothing but darkness of one small room and one small window to match. Was this a fate that I was to always have? Footsteps were being heard from the other side of my small room. My door had been unlatched and opened, and there stood two guards awaiting my readiness for what must be done. I look out the window once more before leaving and wipe the tears from my eyes while whispering to myself why have I done such a thing in all the many years I lived. I stare, my eyes red as the murky sky from early in the morning. One of the guards calls my name and I know it’s time; time for me to rid of this heavy heart, time for me to take a long, but quiet break.
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