Songs of Ascent

by the Revd Naomi Gardom

I recently discovered that The Lark Ascending, Vaughan Williams’ immensely popular piece for violin and orchestra, was based on a poem of the same name by the Victorian poet George Meredith. The poem has the same lucent, liquid quality as the music, depicting the bird’s flight and song, both soaring over a pastoral scene. The poet writes of the inspiration that those who witness it might take, inspiration to unselfconscious creativity:

‘But wider over many heads

The starry voice ascending spreads,

Awakening, as it waxes thin,

The best in us to him akin’

In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the term ‘Songs of Ascent’ is given to a cycle of psalms, 120-134. The ‘ascent’ referred to is not the effortless flight of a bird, but the laborious climb of pilgrims travelling up to Jerusalem for the major festivals. Nevertheless, these short psalms are full of cheerfulness and hope. Some of them refer to simple domestic scenes, such as the sight of a sated infant on their mother’s breast (Ps. 131) or the sowing of seed (Ps. 126). Others take courage from the beauty of the natural world (Ps.121). At the centre of the set is Psalm 127, which refers to the building of a house which is protected by the Lord. For pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem, this would have had resonances of the Temple, their goal and destination.

In the Benedictine monastic tradition, these psalms are often recited at the ‘Little Hours’, the short services of prayer which punctuate the day between the more substantial services of Matins and Vespers. They are therefore interwoven with the work of the day, little prods of encouragement to keep going, like the pilgrims on the road.

 This week, the Church will celebrate the great feast of the Ascension, when the resurrected Jesus was taken bodily into heaven. It’s a biblical event which presents problems for artists, with dangling feet often pushing depictions into the realm of the comical. However, it represents a profound truth: that our human nature has been taken up into the eternal relationship of love that is the Trinity. Some days, we do feel inspired to soar and sing, like the lark in Meredith’s poem. Those are wonderful days, and to be treasured. More often, though, our feet are firmly on the ground and the way ahead is steep and sore. On these days, it can be hard to remember that we are all pilgrims, travelling together towards God’s house. When it feels like this, perhaps we can take comfort from the Songs of Ascent, and their promise that the ordinary, mundane things of our human nature are holy too.