Please turn to number 65 and join with the clarinets in “My Song is Love Unknown”.
Number: 65
First Line: My Song is Love Unknown
Name: RHOSYMEDRE.
Meter: 6 6, 6 6, 4 4, 4 4.
Tempo: Slowly and devotionally
Music: John David Edwards, cir. 1805-85
Text: Samuel Crossman, 1624-83
Clarinet Arrangement: 065-mysongisloveunknown
The first line of this hymn is so evocative, that the rest is, well, rather disappointing. Though, I do like the second to last stanza. Sounds like a verse from a blues tune.
My song is love unknown,
My Saviour’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I,
That for my sake
My Lord should take
Frail flesh and die?He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed-for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend,
My Friend indeed,
Who at my need
His life did spend.Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!”
is all their breath,
And for His death
they thirst and cry.Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
He gave the blind their sight,
Sweet injuries!
Yet they at these
Themselves displease,
and ’gainst Him rise.They rise and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they save,
The Prince of life they slay,
Yet cheerful He
to suffering goes,
That He His foes
from thence might free.In life no house, no home,
My Lord on earth might have;
In death no friendly tomb,
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heav’n was his home;
But mine the tomb
Wherein he lay.Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend,
in Whose sweet praise
I all my days
could gladly spend.
This setting is rather repetitious, I tried to mix it up a bit by playing with the dynamics a bit.
Amusing that the hymn is repetitious, as, according to the wikipedia article, “British rock band Coldplay has a song entitled “A Message”, released on the album X&Y, the lyrics and melody of which were inspired by this hymn.” I can’t think of many rock bands more repetitious than Coldplay.
