‘Let us with a gladsome mind’

Rarely is a first-class poet also a hymn writer. While classic hymns may be viewed as a subset of poetry, writing for congregational singing is a different skill from writing for a collection to be read as devotional literature. Several poets in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and, to some extent, the nineteenth centuries wrote devotional poems that were set to music and included in hymnals. These poems had to meet the rigors of meter and prosody demanded of classic hymn structure. Free verse poetry does not work in classical hymn structures. Most notable, perhaps, is George Herbert (1593-1633), whose hymns “Let all the world in every corner sing” (The United Methodist Hymnal, 93) and “Come, My Way, My Truth, My Life” (UMH 164) often find their way into congregational collections. Though his poems are rarely included in hymnals, American poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) has had some poems adapted as hymns.  Fellow northeasterner Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) has also had some poems adapted as hymns. Even Charles Wesley, whose literary output spanned a range of poetic genres, has only more recently been included in more general anthologies of eighteenth-century poetry.

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With John Milton (1608-1674), we unquestionably have a world-class poet. British hymnologist and literary scholar Richard Watson summarizes not only the significance of Milton as a poet, but also his influence on Charles Wesley:

“Milton’s work is of immense importance for the history of English literature. The benign shadow of Paradise Lost lies over English poetry throughout the 18th century, and an understanding of it is fundamental to a reading of Blake and Wordsworth. His influence is felt in hymn writing most clearly in the work of Charles Wesley, whose poetry often echoes Milton, either in the use of individual lines or in the more general understanding of the pattern of Fall and Redemption found in Paradise Lost.”

Milton’s direct contribution to congregational song may be found in his metrical psalms, a sub-genre of classical hymns. As the eminent hymnologist John Julian noted over a century ago, “[Milton’s] influence on English hymn-writing has been very slight, his 19 versions of various Psalms having lain for the most part unused by hymnal compliers.” The exception would be one of his two metrical versions of Psalm 136. Of all Milton’s metrical psalms, our hymn is by far the runaway favorite for inclusion in hymnals, seven times over its nearest rival, “The Lord will come and not be slow.”

Milton’s original metrical version, written with others during 1623-1624, has twenty-four stanzas, obviously too many for congregations to sing. (For the complete original text by John Milton). Therefore, from the beginning, hymnal editors have had to adapt Milton’s poem in some way to accommodate the needs of congregational singing. While hymnals earlier in the twentieth century often included six or even seven stanzas from the original poem, more recently, this number is reduced to five or four. The recently published Glory to God (PCUSA, 2013), for example, includes adapted versions of stanzas one, seven, and twenty-two, closing with a reprise of the first stanza.