I couldn’t but notice the phonological markers in the hymn ‘Higher Ground’ that we sang in my church today. Beyond its spiritual value, these hymns writers are very sound in euphonic aesthetics and poetry itself. This explains why these hymns are very melodious and poetic.
Trust me, I tried my best to focus while being sung in church, but the stylistic spirit in me couldn’t ignore the following poetic and phonological features in the hymn:
● All the lines have equal number of syllables, making the poem achieve a regular metrical pattern, and its resultant rhythm.
● Its metrical pattern is iambic tetrametre (four pairs of unstressed+stressed syllables).
● Its lines rhyme with aa bb pattern.
● It’s rich in assonance (e.g., the repetition of the diphthong /eɪ/ in ‘scale’, ‘way’, ‘faith’ and ‘table’; the open vowel /ɒ/ in ‘long’ and ‘song’; etc.).
All these phonological markers make the message of the hymn emphatic. It’s the writer’s (and the singers’) desire to be spiritually solid and strong, resisting every form of obstacles. In addition, the phonological markers contribute to the euphonic beauty and musical quality of the hymn.
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