Melissa Dunphy

Commissioned for the Yale Glee Club's NextWorks initiative

NextWorks

NextWorks is an initiative of the Yale Glee Club that commissions accessible new music for choirs around the world to perform, free of charge.

Visit NextWorks for scores to The Melody of Stones and four other new works, demo recordings, free learning materials, and a chance for your choir to Zoom with one of the NextWorks composers!

Text

The Melody of Stones
By Mark A. Boyle

Some say that rocks are what give rivers their tunes;
As water passes over sunken stones
A melody appears, beneath a summer moon,
Upon the river's surface. They intone
The song of ages past. Contained inside
Each rock are notes from a thousand yesterdays.

They sing the melody of stones.

They sing immortal hymns about the wide, wide world;
Countless stories, from a changeless choir,
Sound through epochs - endless, deep, and vast.
Their music echoes, ever upward - higher -

Listen to the melody of stones.

A symphony of time, forever cast.
So let us listen, hearts in tune with stone,
And find in nature's song a world unknown.