In the first phrase, “loved” needed some more emphasis to counter “hated”, and “those” was much too long. This version placed more weight on “hated” and “dance”, but also slows the rhythm down as the phrase progresses.
Further revision places the four principle words of the phrase, “loved”, “those”, “hated”, and “dance” on the downbeat of each bar and has a bit more rhythmic variety.
Applying the same method to the second phrase, whose four principle words are “those’, “loved”, “dance”, and “respected” yields a five-bar phrase without much rhythmic interest and which conflicts a bit with the text; these are, after all, the folks that like dancing.
Adding some syncopation resulted in a drawn-out and undanceable mess.
I’m in a coffee shop right now; the background music is a folk-dance tune, possibly Greek, wich gives me an idea: change the meter to 5/8 with a simple dotted-quarter – quarter rhythm.
I wrote this setting of the third and fourth phrases a couple of weeks ago and for now I’ll keep it. Doing so means taking the first two phrases and extending them for several more measures so that this chorale acts as a summarizing coda; I’ll do that later.
Back to the first phrase, it’s time to add pitch:
To transition from the first section I added a couple of bars after “his was a zealous life”, bringing it to a full plagal close.
And to start the second section, an introduction based on the opening figure of the vocal part:
The tale so far, from the top:
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