I recently found some notes about features in Advent hymns that I noticed a number of years ago.
In "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus," sung to the tune "Jefferson," there are a handful of melismas that provide a sense of duration: "long-expected" (D F G Bb A G) in the title line, sung to this phrase:
"forever" (A G A G) in the line "Born to reign is us forever" in the second verse, sung to the same phrase (repeated as the third musical phrase), and "eternal" (D Bb A G) in the line "By Thine own eternal Spirit" in the second verse, sung to this phrase:
In the lines "Dear desire of ev'ry nation, / Joy of ev'ry longing heart" at the end of the first verse, both "ev'ry"s are sung with melismas (Bb A G and D F G, respectively), giving a sense of number or amount. Here are the corresponding musical phrases:
Last September, I watched the One LSB Hymn a Week video for "Who Are You Who Walk in Sorrow" and noticed a lot of features to write about.
The tune is "Jefferson," and all but one of the features I found are in the second phrase or the fourth phrase (which is just the second phrase repeated):
The second line of the first verse is "Down Emmaus' barren road," and the "Down" is sung to a descending pair of notes to reflect this musically. The fourth line of the first verse is "Bent beneath grief's crushing load?" and the melody descends to portray the "Bent" (G F) and the "crushing load" (Bb A G).
The second line of the second verse is "Walking with us stride by stride." "Walking" is sung with a melisma (G F D C) for a musical sense of movement, and the "stride by stride" is sung to a conjunct melody (Bb A G), so there's a step-wise motion in the music and in the text. The fourth line of the second verse is "Depths of grief for one who died?" The descending notes at the beginning, going to the lowest pitch in the phrase (C) and in the entire tune, give a musical sense of the (metaphorical) "Depths of grief."
The second line of the third verse is "In the breaking of the bread." "Breaking" is sung with a melisma (D F G), so there's a musical sense of the word's meaning: it's broken up among notes. The fourth line of the third verse is "Living, risen from the dead!" and the "risen" ascends (emphasized with a melisma: D F G) for a musical mirroring of the text.
The one other thing I noticed is in the sixth line of the fifth verse, sung to this phrase:
The text here is "Called from ev'ry land and race." "Ev'ry" is sung with a melisma (D D C), musically giving a sense of the great number.
