Some Blessed Hope collects three pieces set to texts by Victorian-era poets: Crossing
the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Snow-flakes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and
The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy. The pieces are arranged to display a narrative of
hope juxtaposed against the harshness of winter. Crossing the Bar, while not directly
about winter, focuses largely on the hope of peace in passing over from one land to the
next, either in the literal crossing between the Isle of Wight and England, or between
one life to the next. The waters of these crossings are especially treacherous during
wintertime, and as such, I determined that this text was still appropriate for this set.
Snow-flakes explores the process of expressing one’s grief in the form of art, using the
parallel of snowfall as nature’s own artistic expression. Finally, The Darkling Thrush tells
of a bird singing merrily against the bitter and icy world of winter, telling of a hope for a
brighter tomorrow. It is subtly hinted in the poem that th
