Immortal Love, Forever Full
Oct. 25th, 2009 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ancientandmodernThis is one of my personal favourites. My parents had it at their wedding, which perhaps isn't a ringing endorsement, but it's still a beautiful hymn. John Greenleaf Whittier, the author of the poem from which the words are taken, is perhaps more famous for the Nation's Favourite Hymn, which, considering that the Favourite Hymn in question is all about how nice it is to be quiet once in a while, suggests either that the Nation doesn't look very closely at the words, or that it has a sense of humour. But I digress.
Immortal love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never ebbing sea!
Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love only knoweth whence it came,
And comprehendeth love.
We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For Him no depths can drown.
But warm, sweet, tender, even yet,
A present help is He;
And faith still has its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.
The healing of His seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again.
Through Him the first fond prayers are said
Our lips of childhood frame,
The last low whispers of our dead
Are burdened with His Name.
Alone, O Love ineffable,
Thy saving name is given;
To turn aside from thee is hell,
To walk with thee is heaven.
Whittier has a remarkable gift for connecting the Jesus we know from the Gospels to the God who is Lord of all Creation, and connecting that human who was all divine with our experience now. Some of the imagery is a little Victorian - 'our beds of pain'; 'the first fond prayers' of 'our lips of childhood' - but the message is plain. Jesus is as much with us now as he was with the people who first knew him on this earth.
He is with us always, sharing our human experiences, and when we look hard enough inside ourselves we find that he always has been with us. We find him where we least expect him, and everywhere. If I search the heavens, you are there, and if I go down to the grave I cannot escape from your love. He is with us from the first to the last, and all we need to do is reach out to him. 'A present help' indeed.
YouTube has failed me, and there are no videos of the hymn being sung. Here, however, is the tune Bishopthorpe, to which I've always sung it. I suppose you could play the video over and over again and sing along!
NetHymnal has the alternative tune and some extra verses. (Warning: it will play a MIDI file at you whether you like it or not, so you may wish to turn your sound down or off.)
Immortal love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never ebbing sea!
Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love only knoweth whence it came,
And comprehendeth love.
We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For Him no depths can drown.
But warm, sweet, tender, even yet,
A present help is He;
And faith still has its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.
The healing of His seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again.
Through Him the first fond prayers are said
Our lips of childhood frame,
The last low whispers of our dead
Are burdened with His Name.
Alone, O Love ineffable,
Thy saving name is given;
To turn aside from thee is hell,
To walk with thee is heaven.
Whittier has a remarkable gift for connecting the Jesus we know from the Gospels to the God who is Lord of all Creation, and connecting that human who was all divine with our experience now. Some of the imagery is a little Victorian - 'our beds of pain'; 'the first fond prayers' of 'our lips of childhood' - but the message is plain. Jesus is as much with us now as he was with the people who first knew him on this earth.
He is with us always, sharing our human experiences, and when we look hard enough inside ourselves we find that he always has been with us. We find him where we least expect him, and everywhere. If I search the heavens, you are there, and if I go down to the grave I cannot escape from your love. He is with us from the first to the last, and all we need to do is reach out to him. 'A present help' indeed.
YouTube has failed me, and there are no videos of the hymn being sung. Here, however, is the tune Bishopthorpe, to which I've always sung it. I suppose you could play the video over and over again and sing along!
NetHymnal has the alternative tune and some extra verses. (Warning: it will play a MIDI file at you whether you like it or not, so you may wish to turn your sound down or off.)