"Blind King John falls in the fray." I have that, marked with accents on scrap paper, as "BLIND king JOHN falls IN the FRAY." Seriously. I put an accent on "in." On purpose and everything. I mean, you can read it that way, but it's far from natural to do so.
I'm going back and forth on using some modified version of Douce Dame Jolie as a tune. With the deadline approaching, and with the tune working really well for most of the poem, it's a real temptation. But on the other hand, music that is very similar but not the same will probably drive some folks mad. I get that way with repurposed Christmas carols and hymns in church. I don't mind the tune being reused so much as the clumsy way the lyrics are kept as similar as possible - just similar enough that you think you're singing the usual version when up pops something different. I was halfway through O Come, O Come Emmanuel before I realized the rest of the congregation was not following it the first line of the refrain with "And ransom captive Israel." Or What Ice Is This? to the tune of Greensleeves. I can live with What Child Is This? and Greensleeves sharing music, because the words are so different. And I can live with filk that's usually a parody of the original sharing many of the words.
I can only imagine that if I heard myself singing something that was almost, but not quite, Douce Dame Jolie, I'd be slightly puzzled and gritting my teeth every time the music went "wrong." I'll have to see what magnitude changes we're talking about here - I got a first draft of the tune done over the weekend, but I haven't seen how well it works with the text yet.
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