Occasionally I am asked, "What is your favourite hymn?" My response is usually which ever one is running through my head at that moment because I have so many favourites. "O Love that wilt not let me go" is definitely one of them. I think it is an appropriate hymn for Lent; the words make me reflect on my own commitment to God, and rejoice in the nature of God's unfailing love and redemption.
O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
that in thine ocean depths its flow
may richer, fuller be.
O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
my heart restores its borrowed ray,
that in thy sunshine's blaze, its day
may brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
and feel the promise is not vain
that morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
and from the ground there blossoms red,
life that shall endless be.
This hymn was written by George Matheson (1842-1906), a Scots preacher, scholar and writer. He was born with poor vision which gradually deteriorated, leaving him blind by the time he was 20. Matheson never married, but with the help of one of his sisters, completed his education at the University of Glasgow, entered the ministry, wrote books, and lectured. He wrote of how this hymn came to be: "I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high." George Matheson - Wikipedia
To my knowledge, these words are always sung to the tune ST. MARGARET by Albert Lister Peace. Someday, I'd like to post about the life of St. Margaret, as I always think of her story when hearing this hymn.
3 comments:
I love those words too, especially the first two lines of the third verse:
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I find them so very comforting!
Oh, and I am wondering if that tune, St. Margaret, is ever used with other hymns. In the hymnal my church uses (blue Trinity Hymnal), this hymn is the only one set to it. Thanks, AuntE!
It would be an interesting search to see if the tune has been used with other words. Some texts and tunes have such a great (perfect?) marriage that it is very difficult to match either one of them up with another partner and have any measure of success.
Another hymn in that category (for me anyway) would be "A Mighty Fortress". A different tune just wouldn't cut it!
It helps that Luther wrote both the words and music for A mighty fortress, so editors are less likely to separate them.
The Cyber Hymnal does list one other hymn sometimes sung to ST. MARGARET, and it seems to me that I've seen one or two others in modern times. But none will be able to supplant this one!
As it happens, Matheson's birthday is coming up this Friday so I will have more to say about him then (plus another hymn of his that I like, since I already used this one back on November 16).
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