Sunday, December 03, 2006

Simple Gifts

...an old Shaker song that has been brought back to my memory and touched me deeply in recent times, my sister wrote it within the birthday card she gave to me a few weeks ago, and an instrumental version of it happened to have been played at my Aunt & Uncle's wedding vow renewal service yesterday. For this reason it's theme has been on my mind and I wanted to reprint it here...

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.



...and here is the tune that it is sung to, I've also heard a beautiful version featuring Allison Krauss singing with a cello.

2 comments:

Bacchus said...

This is one of my favorite pieces of music. We used it as the central piece for our wedding.

Nonsequitur said...

That must have been lovely! My aunt & uncle did the same thing for their 30th anniversary vow renewal.