Happy sons of Israel,
Who in pleasant Canaan dwell:
Fill the air with shouts of joy,
Shouts redoubled from the sky.
Sing the great Jehovah’s praise,
Trophies to His glory raise.
These quotations must suffice for the psalms of the period between the
Old and New Versions. Those who are interested in this not very
attractive literature will find specimens of the principal British and
American writers in Holland’s _Psalmists of Britain_ (1843), and
Glass’s _Story of the Psalters_ (1888). When one looks at the two
authorized metrical versions, and the many attempts made to supplant
them, it is difficult to understand how the Church could so long have
clung to the metrical Psalter, and could be so slow to use a
hymn-book. Keble says of his own version—‘It was undertaken, in the
first instance, with a serious apprehension, which has since grown
into a full conviction, that the thing attempted is, strictly
speaking, _impossible_.’ Yet scores have made the same fruitless
effort since Keble failed.
Apart from the psalm-versions there are few hymns of the sixteenth
century. George Gascoigne (d. 1577), a lawyer, poet, and courtier of
Elizabeth’s day, and a descendant of Sir William Gascoigne, the judge
who committed Henry V, when Prince of Wales, to prison, wrote a poem
entitled ‘Good Morrow,’ from which a good hymn has been made, which is
in many of the better school hymnals.
You that have spent the silent night
In sleep and quiet rest,
And joy to see the cheerful light
That riseth in the East;
Now clear your voice, now cheer your heart,
Come help me now to sing;
Each willing wight come bear a part,
To praise the heavenly King.
Yet as this deadly night did last
But for a little space,
And heavenly day, now night is past,
Doth show his pleasant face:
So must we hope to see God’s face
At last in heaven on high,
When we have changed this mortal place
For Immortality.
Unto which joys for to attain,
God grant us all His grace,
And send us, after worldly pain,
In heaven to have a place:
Where we may still enjoy that light,
Which never shall decay:
Lord, for Thy mercy lend us might
To see that joyful day.[65]
Thomas Campion (1567-1619), a doctor of medicine, wrote some lovely
hymns, ‘admirable for their union of melodious simplicity, beauty, and
strong common sense.’[66] Josiah Conder included one in the section
for Private Worship of the Congregational hymn-book, 1836.[67]
Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore,
Never tired pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,
Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast.
O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest!
Ever blooming are the joys of heaven’s high Paradise,
Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines, whose beams the Blessed only see.
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to Thee!
Here is another of Campion’s hymns.
View me, Lord, a work of Thine!
Shall I then lie drowned in night?
Might Thy grace in me but shine,
I should seem made all of light.
Cleanse me, Lord, that I may kneel
At Thine altar, pure and white:
They that once Thy mercies feel,
Gaze no more on earth’s delight.
Worldly joys, like shadows, fade,
When the heavenly light appears:
But the covenants Thou hast made,
Endless, know nor days nor years.
In Thy Word, Lord, is my trust,
To Thy mercies fast I fly;
Though I am but clay and dust,
Yet Thy grace can lift me high.
Campion is not mentioned in the _Dictionary of Hymnology_, but he
deserves a place there.
One other hymn must be mentioned, ‘Jerusalem, my happy home.’ It is
found in a MS. preserved in the British Museum, with the title ‘A Song
Mad, by F. B. P. To the tune of Diana.’ Who the author was no one
knows, but internal evidence indicates that he was a devout Roman
Catholic. In the _Arundel Hymns_ it is attributed to Father Laurence
Anderton, _alias_ John Beverley, S.J. The MS. has twenty-six verses,
of which nineteen were printed in London in 1601. The hymn is probably
based upon a passage in the _Meditations of St. Augustine_. The
popular modern hymn, ‘Jerusalem, my happy home,’ which is now believed
to have been written by Joseph Bromehead, Vicar of Eckington, near
Sheffield, was no doubt suggested by this hymn, or one of the various
versions of it, but has little verbal agreement except in the first
and last verses. I give a portion of the original poem.
Hierusalem, my happie home,
When shall I come to thee,
When shall my sorrowes haue an end,
Thy ioyes when shall I see.
O happie harbour of the saints,
O sweete and pleasant soyle,
In thee noe sorrow may be founde,
Noe greefe, noe care, noe toyle.
Hierusalem, Hierusalem,
God grant I once may see
Thy endless ioyes, and of the same
Partaker aye to bee.
Thy wales are made of precious stones,
Thy bulwarkes diamondes square,
Thy gates are of right orient pearle,
Exceeding riche and rare.
Thy terrettes and thy pinnacles
With carbuncles doe shine,
Thy verie streetes are paued with gould,
Surpassinge cleare and fine.
Thy houses are of ivorie,
Thy windoes cristale cleare,
Thy tyles are mad of beaten gould,
O God that I were there.
There David standes with harpe in hand,
As maister of the queere,
Tenne thousand times that man were blest
That might this musicke hear.
Our Ladie singes magnificat
With tune surpassinge sweete,
And all the virgins beare their parts
Sitinge aboue her feete.
Te Deum doth Sant Ambrose singe,
Sant Augustine dothe the like;
Ould Simeon and Zacharie
Haue not their songes to seeke.
There Magdalene hath left her mone,
And cheerefullie doth singe,
With blessed Saints whose harmonie
In everie streete doth ringe.
Hierusalem, my happie home,
Would God I were in thee,
Would God my woes were at an end,
Thy ioyes that I might see.