La fille aux cheveux de lin

Remembering my dear niece, Lia Smith, the girl with flaxen hair.

"La fille aux cheveux de lin" by Claude Debussy, from Preludes Book 1, and set to the French poem by Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle:

Sur la luzerne en fleur assise,
Qui chante dès le frais matin?
C'est la fille aux cheveux de lin,
La belle aux lèvres de cerise.

Upon the alfalfa in bloom sitting,
Who sings from the cool morning?
It is the girl with flaxen hair,
The beauty with cherry lips.

Opening on a pentatonic melody, sans rigueur, we notice a plagal cadence to M3, IV/I to G-flat major, softly establishing the home key, or with my interpretation, a modest prayer.

Later, before this same melody returns in a higher register, we have a deceptive cadence at M28, instead of returning to I (G-flat), we move to IV (C-flat), or the plagal chord at M2. I interpret by design, setting up the return of the original melody, this time "from above", a reminiscence of the past.