I heard a fly buzz when I died uses the tune of China, Timothy Swan’s setting of Isaac Watts’s funeral hymn Why do we mourn departing friends. This hymn was heard at many funerals in New England during the first half of the 19th Century. Research at the Houghton Library at Harvard and at the library at Harvard Divinity School revealed that this tune was in one of the hymnals by Emily Dickinson’s piano. The shape-note version of China is found in The Sacred Harp, first published in 1844. Here is a link to a reading at a Sacred Harp convention in Western Massachusetts. (The tune is the tenor line. At the beginning, the singers sing solfège, not the actual words.)
Abraham to kill him is Dickinson’s sardonic retelling of the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. In the last verse, she calls God a dog. The music has a vague connection in style to Stephen Foster’s Civil War song We are coming Father Abraham, 300,000 more.
2. Offertory
Chorus:
Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory,
libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum liberate the souls of all the faithful departed
de poenis inferni et de profundo lacu: from the pains of hell and from the deep pit;
libera eas de ore leonis, deliver them from the lion’s mouth;
ne absorbeat tartarus, let not hell swallow them up,
ne cadant in obscurum: let them not fall into darkness:
sed signifer sanctus Michael But let Michael, the holy standard-bearer,
repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam: bring them into the holy light,
Quam olim Abrahae promisisti, which once thou promised to Abraham
et semini ejus. and his seed.
Soprano:
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm –
The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –
And breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –
I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –
With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –
Between the light – and me –
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see – (465)
Chorus:
Hostias et preces tibi, Sacrifices and prayers of praise,
Domini, laudis offerimus: O Lord, we offer to thee.
tu suscipe pro animabus illis, Receive them, Lord, on behalf of those souls
quarum hodie memoriam facimus: we commemorate this day.
fac eas, domine, Grant them, O Lord,
de morte transire ad vita. to pass from death to life,
Quam olim Abrahae promisisti, which once thou promised to Abraham
et semini ejus. and his seed.
Soprano:
Abraham to kill him
Was distinctly told –
Isaac was an Urchin –
Abraham was old –
Not a hesitation –
Abraham complied –
Flattered by Obeisance
Tyranny demurred –
Isaac – to his children
Lived to tell the tale –
Moral – with a Mastiff
Manners may prevail. (1317)
Here is a link to a recording.
Here is the next movement, What is – “Paradise” –