Fold to thy heart thy brother
Over on someone else's LJ, I've just been reading a comment about someone's school hymn. Which has just reminded me to muse what a bloody odd choice my school made.
( O Brother Man )
( O Brother Man )
"Our Father, by whose servant this house was built of old,
Whose hand hath crowned her children with blessings manifold,
For thine unfailing mercy, far strewn along our way,
With all who passed before us we praise thy name today.
Four hundred years enduring[*] from age to following age,
A hundred generations have built our heritage.
Their names are long forgotten, long spent their hopes and fears,
Safe rest they in thy keeping, who changest not with years.
They reap not where they laboured, we reap what they have sown,
Our harvest may be garnered by ages yet unknown.
The days of old have dowered us with gifts beyond all praise;
Our Father, make us faithful to serve the coming days.
Before us and beside us, still holden in thine hand
A cloud unseen of witness our elder comrades stand.
One family unbroken we join with one acclaim,
One heart, one voice uplifted to glorify thy name."
It was a Victorian-ish hymn tune (maybe a bit unpredictable in places but fine once you got the hang of it), & the same for each verse, but with a nice descant on the last verse (the choir sang the descant at prizegivings and stuff). I was (and am) quite fond of our school hymn, & I confess I got very weepy when singing it at my last ever assembly. Thinking of it now I can almost feel those itchy grey school socks. :-D
Your description of your complicated school hymn with the difficult tune reminds me of the very rare occasions at school when we would sing ST PATRICK'S BREASTPLATE ("I bind unto myself today / the power of the Trinity..."), which is probably the most awesome hymn I know, but it is a bit of a complicated tune & then there's a bit in the middle where it goes into a different key and time-signature and nobody ever knows how it goes. Someone I knew had it at their wedding, & that was a disaster. :-}
Sorry for rambling on, but, hymns! I could talk forever about hymns. They are great.
[*] when our brother-school had its quincentenary they changed this line to "five hundred years enduring"[**], but it was "four hundred years" for my first 5 years or so at the school, so that's what I know best.
[**] the girls' school was nowhere near as old, but both high schools and the junior school that fed into them all had the same school hymn.
Reply
I have a near-incurable habit of making hymns rhyme; Victorian hymns bring out the words in me because their homonyms were often quite approximate. I'd have had to sing "have built our herit-age" to make it rhyme with age. Possibly also "Trinitay" in your St Patrick example, though without the rest of the words that might be just a red herring.
I still maintain that you can always spot choir-trained singers of hymns, because they take notice of all the commans and little brackety ellision things which most people ignore. "Where meek souls will receive him, still" is a good one to catch at Christmas time.
There's a similar one I can't right now call to mind in a popular wedding hymn - several of us (who didn't know each other) bonded over it a wedding a few years back while those who hadn't been harangued on the topic by choirmasters at an impressionable age looked vaguely baffled by the whole business :)
Reply
Yep, that's how we sang it (the nature of the tune meant that you did sort of land quite heavily on the '-age' of 'heritage' anyway so it was a bit unavoidable).
Possibly also "Trinitay" in your St Patrick example, though without the rest of the words that might be just a red herring.
Ah no, it it rhymes with "three" further on. Words here (and I think that page plays audio at you if you haven't bvggered up your plugins like wot I have). The "Christ be with me, Christ within me" bit is the bit that gets a completely different tune.
Totally know what you mean about the commas and things in hymns. There's another one that always irks me when people get it wrong, but I can't remember it, may well be the same one you're thinking of. :) When I say "people get it wrong" I generally mean "people look at me funny when I sing through the bit where they're all taking a big breath".
"Where meek souls will receive him, still" is a good one to catch at Christmas time.
And it is nearly Christmas time for singing purposes!! :) We have already started work on the Christmas stuff in choir, but I always want to do more carols, I just can't get enough.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment