“God of mercy, God of grace” By Henry Francis Lyte
GOD of mercy, God of grace,
Show the brightness of Thy face:
Shine upon us, Saviour, shine;
Fill Thy Church with light divine;
And Thy saving health extend,
Unto earth’s remotest end.
Let the people praise Thee, Lord;
Be by all that live adored;
Let the nations shout and sing
Glory to their Saviour King;
At Thy feet their tributes pay,
And Thy holy will obey.
Let the people praise Thee, Lord,
Earth shall then her fruits afford;
God to man His blessing give;
Man to God devoted live;
All below, and all above,
One in joy and light and love.
The last couple days just been gently getting back into things fairly impulsively, using some words by Hildegard of Bingen and seeing what I came up with. (Just the words and not the chant tunes I know…… controversial….)
I also made some extremely reverby recordings, to pretend I am sixteen people in a cathedral.
These are so far for slightly different vocal groupings, unless singers are prepared to be rather flexible. For the second one I attempted what I remember of “Old German Latin” from singing with Schola Cantorum. For the first, just some vague church Latin….. (and I said “beata” instead of “beati”, making it grammatically nonsensical, oops.)
Vos flores rosarum,
qui in effusione sanguinis vestri
beati estis
You buds of roses,
who in the shedding of your blood
are blessed
O mirum admirandum,
quod absconsa forma praecellit,
ardua in honesta statura,
ubi vivens altitudo
profert mystica.
Unde, o Disibode,
surges in fine,
succurrente flore
omnium ramorum mundi,
ut primum surrexisti.
O wonder, O how wondrous!
A hidden form, so hard, so high, so steep,
surpasses in its lofty honor—
where Living Height itself
reveals the mysteries.
And so, O Disibod,
you shall arise at the end of time
as first you rose—
the flower of all the branches
of the world
comes to your aid.
To God’s all-gracious heart and mind My heart and mind I yield; In seeming loss my gain I find, In death, life stands revealed. I am His own whose glorious throne In highest heaven is set; Beneath His stroke or sorrow’s yoke His heart upholds me yet.
If happy sunshine be Thy gift, With joy I take it, Lord; If o’er dark stormy seas I drift, I hear Thy guiding word; If lengthened life, with blessings rife, Before my feet be spread, So Thou my Guide wilt still abide, With joy that path I tread.
But must I walk the vale of death Through sad and sunless ways, I pass along in quiet faith, Thy glance my fear allays; Through the dark land my Shepherd’s hand Leads to an end so bright, That I shall there with praise declare That all God’s ways are right! Yes I shall there with praise declare That all God’s ways are right!
An updated arrangement and recording of song I wrote last year! I like how it sounds a good deal.
And on the night before this blessed morn A troop of Angels unto Shepherds told, Where in a stable he was poorly born, Whom nor the earth nor heaven of heavens can hold, Through Bethlehem rung. This news at their return ; Yea, Angels sung, That God with us was born And they made mirth, because we should not mourn.
This favour Christ has given for our sake : To buy us thrones he in a manger lay ; Our weakness he took, that we his strength might take, And was disrob’d, that he might us array : Our flesh he wore, Our sin to wear away : Our curse he bore, That we escape it may ; And wept for us, that we might sing for aye
I started to fear I was going to run out of suitable Catherine Winkworth material, but then I had a proper look at Christian Singers of Germany, her book of biographical sketches of Luther and others around the same time together with hymn translations, not all of which I’d seen elsewhere. Hooray!
Today I sketched out five songs, all on ukulele. One of them is actually……….. very famous. Ein feste Burg / A Mighty Fortress is our God………… The translation is a bit different than the most used English one, and I’ve taken a very different direction than Bach here however.
Excerpts from five songs
…As Thy beloved, soothe the sick and weeping, And bid the prisoner lose his griefs in sleeping; Widows and orphans we to Thee commend them, Do Thou, do Thou befriend them. (Evening Hymn – Bohemian Brethren)
…The world around is passing With all its pomp and pride; What men are here amassing Can never long abide; We die–and it is gone. But fear not, Christian sleeper, God is our mighty Keeper, And we shall wake anon…. (From God shall nought divide me – Louis Helmboldt)
…And were the world with devils filled, All eager to devour us, Our souls to fear should little yield, They cannot overpower us. Their dreaded Prince no more Can harm us as of yore; Look grim as e’er he may, Doomed is his ancient sway; A word can overthrow him… (Stronghold – Martin Luther)
…Ah Jesus Christ, my Lord! So meek in deed and word, Didst Thou not die to save us, Because Thou fain wouldst have us, After this life of sadness, Heirs of Thy heavenly gladness?… (In God my faithful God – Sigismund Weingartner)
…Ah! never can I praise enough The mercy Thou hast shown! When days were dark and storms were rough Thou mad’st Thy kindness known, Thy miracles of goodness then Thou sufferedst me to see; O Bread of Life! my heart again Cries, let me cling to Thee!…. (Burning Love, holy Flame – Anon.)
