Behold the Glories of the Lamb

A young boy complains to his father that most of the church hymns are boring to him because they are so far behind the times. His father becomes angry and states that "the hymns are good enough for your grandfather and me, and they will serve you just as well." But the teenager says that not only are the tunes boring, but the words are meaningless ... the songs are just too old fashioned. Putting an end to the discussion, his father says to him, "Well, if you think you can write better hymns, then why don't you?" The son says that he will. He goes to his room and writes his first hymn.

The year was 1690, the teenager was Isaac Watts, and the hymn was "Behold the Glories of the Lamb." During the next few years he wrote other songs. "We're marching to Zion", "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross", and "Joy to the World" are among the almost 350 hymns he created. The lyrics were his own but sometimes the melodies were similar in origin to Luther's ... seized from the streets or from popular theatre.

Larry Norman
Liner Notes, In Another Land
ht/Becoming

Behold the glories of the Lamb
Amidst His Father’s throne.
Prepare new honors for His Name,
And songs before unknown.

Let elders worship at His feet,
The Church adore around,
With vials full of odors sweet,
And harps of sweeter sound.

Those are the prayers of the saints,
And these the hymns they raise;
Jesus is kind to our complaints,
He loves to hear our praise.

Eternal Father, who shall look
Into Thy secret will?
Who but the Son should take that Book
And open every seal?

He shall fulfill Thy great decrees,
The Son deserves it well;
Lo, in His hand the sovereign keys
Of Heav’n, and death, and hell!

Now to the Lamb that once was slain
Be endless blessings paid;
Salvation, glory, joy remain
Forever on Thy head.

Thou hast redeemed our souls with blood,
Hast set the prisoner free;
Hast made us kings and priests to God,
And we shall reign with Thee.

The worlds of nature and of grace
Are put beneath Thy power;
Then shorten these delaying days,
And bring the promised hour.

St. Ephrem the Syrian

Today is the feast of St. Ephrem the Syrian, my patron.

Here is what some folks are saying:

• The Ignatius Press blog quotes the Holy Father's Wednesday Catechesis on St. Ephrem from Nov. 28, 2007
• The Catholic News Agency offers a brief biography
• Catholic Exchange says, "His unique and effective approach involved writing hymns against the heretics of the day; he would take popular songs of such groups and, using their melodies, compose very beautiful hymns expressing true doctrine."
• And here is a very nice reflection by abitadeacon

The hymn writer's useful mediocrity

There is a style and manner suited to the composition of hymns, which may be more successfully, or at least more easily attained by a versifier, than by a poet. They should be Hymns, not Odes, if designed for public worship, and for the use of plain people. Perspicuity, simplicity and ease, should be chiefly attended to; and the imagery and coloring of poetry, if admitted at all, should be indulged very sparingly and with great judgment. The late Dr. Watts, many of whose hymns are admirable patterns in this species of writing, might, as a poet, have a right to say, That it cost him some labor to restrain his fire, and to accommodate himself to the capacities of common readers. But it would not become me to make such a declaration. It behoved me to do my best. But though I would not offend readers of taste by a wilful coarseness, and negligence, I do not write professedly for them. If the LORD whom I serve, has been pleased to favor me with that mediocrity of talent, which may qualify me for usefulness to the weak and the poor of his flock, without quite disgusting persons of superior discernment, I have reason to be satisfied.--John Newton, Olney Hymns

Rhyme

Not everyone agrees that rhymes are essential to poetry. John Milton famously derided its use in his introduction to Paradise Lost, saying that rhyme is "no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame meter. . ." So Paradise Lost was not rhymed, but metrically excellent.

Rhymes are considered essential in English hymn writing of the metrical kind. I know of only one metrical hymn tune that is regularly set without rhyme: Iste Confessor. Otherwise, rhymes must be employed.

One long-established shortcut, however, is to rhyme only the even-numbered lines. Consider:

Alleluia, sing to Jesus
His the sceptre; His the throne.
Alleluia, His the triumph;
His the victory alone.

There is a solid rhyme on the second and fourth lines. But with the first and third lines there isn't even an attempt at rhyme. The ear accepts this, and simply makes the rhyming lines longer, ignoring the break after "Jesus" and "triumph." However, the break is real. This hymn, for example, is often set to Hyfrydol, which is considered an 8787 Double hymn--with alternating lines of eight and seven syllables, not of 15 syllables. But the ear makes accommodations.

Rhyme is an aid to memory. Commercial jingles that rhyme are easier to remember; if you can remember the first line, it acts as a prompt for remembering the next. In my hometown there used to be a jingle (probably still in use) that went,

"See Pearson Ford, they stand alone
At Fairmount and El Cajon."

Rhyme is one of the reasons that hymns are more often remembered on Sunday afternoons than sermons are.

The Reviews Are In...

...And they are everything one could wish for.

The DC Archdiocesan paper has a brief article on Catholic University's Mass of the Holy Spirit, at which my hymn to the Holy Spirit was sung. This is the third paragraph:

The entrance hymn of "Come, Holy Spirit" echoed through the small church.

That's what the article has to say about this hymn that was mine, which now belongs to the people (with all rights reserved by my publisher.) It's not about me--though I really would like to make some money someday. It's about the hymn, and the Mass, and the sacred space, and the voice of the people.

The dream of a hymn writer is to "know the joyful shout," and to hiddenly "lead the joyful throng into the house of God, with cries of gladness and thanksgiving.

So that's one dream realized. What's next?

Women Hymn Writers on ABC

Looks like ABC is going to run a show on the contributions of women hymn writers.

Tomorrow morning. While we're all at church.

Edit: In Australia--so there's no time conflict after all!

"How To Write Hymns"

By Stuart Townend:

"So how can we make sure what we write is worth singing for years to come? Here are a few ideas that I try to put into practice myself:

1. Study the Scriptures. The best hymns demonstrate insight and understanding of the Bible, and consequently bring the truths of the Christian faith to life. If you don’t know the message of the gospel, you can’t write something that will enable others to worship in spirit and truth..."

more

How to Write a Hymn

PrayingTwice asked in one of the comboxes: what is your process of writing a hymn or making a translation?

I answered truthfully that most of the preparation for hymn writing occurs in a very remote manner. A person should read the Psalms in prayer, become deeply accustomed to Scripture, and become acquainted with as much poetry as possible. Then it helps to spend a lot of time analyzing the existing liturgical music. What works? What doesn't? Why? Think about phrases that seem to be alive, like a lot of C. Wesley's, and those that seem relatively wooden. What makes the difference?

Then the actual task of hymn writing can begin.

Translations

In college we translated both Greek and French literature, and I developed the following habits for translation. In a notebook, write a line of the text to be translated. Skip three lines and continue writing out the text. Etc. Translate what you can without looking things up in the line above the text. In the line below, make whatever notes you might need, especially regarding grammatical forms. We would usually hash out the details of translations in class and make corrections to our work. There is no real opportunity to do that with hymns, but there are existing translations of many Latin hymns that help with clearing up any ambiguities. I have found this website to be most valuable.

Once you have a clear translation, the process continues much as in regular hymn writing. The main difference is that you have very narrowly defined parameters in meter, content, theological style and tone. This definition occurs dynamically in regular hymn writing: if you start writing about heaven, you will want to draw vocabulary from happy-sounding words, etc. A song about patient endurance would have a more subdued vocabulary. But in translations I feel that I am very much bound to the shape, theology, and tone of the original.

Hymn Writing

When I begin a new hymn text, I usually write about a verse and a half at one sitting, plus any ideas that occur to me regarding where I think the hymn should end up, or any nifty lines. I make a note of the tune that I had in mind when I began writing, and set the text aside. This does not take a long time--but it does take "inspiration" or a creative moment or whatever one would like to call it. This is why I have said that the most important work is done way ahead of the actual writing: without the long-haul process of simply learning as much as possible about the Bible, and without liturgy and prayer, one would never get "a good idea for a hymn." Those good ideas are the sine qua non of hymn writing. If you get one, write it down. Make sure you can find it when you have more time to work--I write hymns on a handheld computer.

Later, it will be time to come back to continue the text for its full length, and to edit. In my mind I "sing" what I have already written, to the tune I noted before. The most important suggestion I can make for this stage is, don't rush. It is better to be good than to be finished. I have seen so many hymn texts that start off with the invaluable "good idea" and then slip down to mediocrity at around the third verse. Words that seem obviously chosen for no reason but rhyme. Unnecessary inversions of normal English sentence structure. Unreasonable changes in person or tense. Cliche rhymes such as "love"/"above" without a really good reason. But mostly, the error is a general loss of the energy and precision that got the hymn off to a good start in the beginning. If you can't finish it well, don't finish it. Maybe you will think of a phrase six months from now.

(And yes, I do use a rhyming dictionary once in a great while, but only if I'm really really stuck!)

I would say just a word about doxologies. If the last verse is a doxology, there is no shame in using one of the many existing versifications of praise to the Trinity (as long as they are not under copyright). However, sometimes it can be very nice to make a doxology that fits very neatly with the hymn that you are writing. That is one of the reasons I like Reginald Heber's doxology to Sing of Mary, Pure and Lowly:

Glory be to God the Father, Glory be to God the Son.

Glory be to God the Spirit, Glory to the Three in One.

From the heart of blessed Mary, from all saints, the song ascends,

And the Church the strain re-echoes unto earth's remotest ends.

Worth Reading

A lecture on liturgical music trends by Fr. Jan Michael Joncas, composer of On Eagles' Wings. A little dated (1997) but still helpful as a way to begin answering the all-important question: What is going on?

The Lost Island of Deleted Verses--population: not enough.

In addition to the earlier-mentioned gray area of the hymnal, the place where the latter verses live, there is a Lost Island of Deleted Verses, usually quite hidden but revealed here.

Sometimes I'll finish a hymn and realize that it's just not quite working, and the reason is verse 3 (it is in fact often verse 3). Or verse 2 or 5--something that just isn't working correctly, either because the rhyme won't go or sometimes because the theology is off. Often it's just heavy-handed. So I take the verse out, and voila, the text works as a whole. Just needed a good amputation to finish up.Some examples follow.

From an Epiphany hymn, to the tune of "At the Name of Jesus":

As the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon
Camels heav'ly laden under gifts of balm
So they brought their treasures to the holy Child
Signal that the nations might be reconciled.

Actually, I was mistaken about the Bible when I wrote the above--the Queen of Sheba never laded her camels with balm. That was someone else. So I rewrote the first lines to:

As the Queen of Sheba came to Israel's king

Wisdom's light to treasure; precious gifts to bring...

Good deletion!

Here's another, from an Assumption hymn, to the tune of For All the Saints:

The Blessed Mother perfectly reveals:

Fruits of God's grace grow best in fertile fields.

God's word is sown and plentifully yields,Alleluia, alleluia.

That's okay, but it's just too heavy-handed with the whole fertility theme, too borderline earth-motherish. Also, the second verse is not as directly drawn from Scripture as the rest of the text was. Also a good deletion.

One that I would have liked to keep--no glaring problems with it--is this from an All Saints Hymn, to the tune of Christ the Lord is Ris'n Today:

Once their deaths appeared as loss, Alleluia!

Like their Master's on His cross, Alleluia!

With Him they accepted strife, Alleluia!

With Him share abundant life, Alleluia!

I deleted that one for two major reasons. First, the life/ strife rhyme is overdone (so is loss/ cross, to tell the truth.) But the real reason is just that the hymn just worked better without it. I think of it as a design issue--it cuts the air better now; it's more streamlined.