Accompanied by three whom He had chosen,
Upon the mountain Christ sought the high remoteness.
And as He prayed in confident devotion
His countenance was changed and shone in glory:
Even His clothes shone as He stood before them;
Elias was with Him and also Moses.
Peter and James and John were soon awoken
To hear of truths to cause them to adore Him.
Even when Peter's words were rashly spoken
The cloud of glory drew its protection over:
Who could compare with Christ? There could be no one:
God has averred His excellent aloneness.
The form is somewhat of my invention. It is based on my, possibly defective, understanding of the Old French laisse. The general principles are:
each stanza had twelve lines;
all twelve lines assonate, i.e. the last stressed syllable has the same vowel sound - full rhymes are usually accidental;
the basic measure is the so-called iambic, unstressed syllable followed by stressed;
each line has five stresses and a break after the second or third stress;
in a substantial minority of lines there is an additional unstressed syllable after the break or at the end of the line, or both.
If these technical details are a distraction, forget them; if lack of them would distract, refer to them.
His excellent aloneness... amen
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