§ 15. Alterations in the Text, as Affecting its Poetical and Lyrical Character. Then seek the Lord betimes, and choose The ways of heavenly truth; The earth affords no lovelier sight Than a religious youth. This fourth line suggests a wholesome thought, but is not a lyrical ending of a hymn. Yet the excellent Dr. Thomas Gibbons has admitted it as the close of a church lyric. The final verse of a hymn should often condense into itself the whole spirit of the preceding verses; and, like the rudder of a ship, control all that goes before it. "His love hath animating power." This is a didactic peroration of an affecting ode by Doddridge. It is a judicious verse, but is not poetry. The hymn will close with a line more in sympathy with all that precedes it, if it be modified in one of the following methods: "His work my hoary head shall bless, This is the closing line of a hymn by Mrs. Steele. It is like the final tone of an anthem. It appears in all our choicest hymn books. But it is not the line with which her exquisite hymn closed at first. Her concluding words were less crowning: "And bless its happy end." A lyric is that kind of poetry which prompts us to sing. We are not incited to utter in musical cadence, phrases merely instructive; turns of encomical or philosophical discourse. It is more in harmony with the very nature of a lyric to exclaim: "In the cold prison of the tomb, The great Redeemer lay," than "The dead Redeemer lay" (we need not hear that he was deceased, if he was entombed); to sing: "When in want, or when in wealth," than "Whether then in want or wealth;" to cry out: "Nor could the bowers of Eden give," than " Nor could untainted Eden give." All feeble, stale, hackneyed phrases, like Watts's "Yet I would not be much concerned," "Nor milk nor honey taste so well," may be exchanged for lines better adapted to awaken the spirit of song. The following are specimens of numerous alterations made in one standard Hymn Book, on purely lyrical grounds: 'Twas the right path to Canaan's ground. And brought their tribes to Canaan's Watts, 107th Psalm. Who trade in floating ships. Watts, 112th Psalm. While envious sinners fret in vain. And makes them company for kings. Not Aaron in his costly dress, But we have no such lengths to go, Watts, 144th Psalm. Happy the country where the sheep, Watts, 135th Psalm. ground. Who tempt the dangerous way. While envious sinners rage in vain. And seats them on the thrones of kings. Not Aaron in his costly dress, Appears so glorious, so divine. We trace no more those devious ways, Happy the land in culture drest, Whose flocks and corn have large increase, Their gods have tongues that cannot talk. Their gods have tongues that speechless prove, etc. Dr. Watts, in more than one hymn, speaks of "wild world;" more vivid than "wide world," to which Dr. Worcester changes it, Bk. ii. 73 and 138. Dr. Watts writes: "We shout with joyful tongues;" more animating than "cheerful tongues," as written by Dr. Worcester, Bk. ii. 42. "And unbelief the spear," is the line of Watts; made less lively by Worcester: "And unbelief a spear," Bk. ii. 95. Cowper writes: "And if her faith was firm and strong, Had strong misgivings too;" which, feeble at best, is still feebler in Worcester's Watts: "Had some misgivings too." (Select Hymn, 76.) Dr. Watts writes: "As potter's earthen work is broke;" Worcester does not mend this line by saying: "As potter's earthen ware is broke," Ps. ii. The following alteration is not disrespectful to the Olney Hymns: John Newton's original. He himself has bid thee pray. Therefore will not say thee nay. Connecticut and Plymouth Collections. The spirit of song often disdains the trammels of a precise philosophy. It flies aloft, and leaves the rules of logic. in the low ground of unimpassioned thought. The naked statement of a truth is sometimes poetical; but at other times the truth must be intimated in metaphors, or veiled in some attractive drapery. When the rationalists of the last age gained possession of the German pulpit, they found that the poet had written in their hymn book, concerning the midnight hour: "Now all the world is locked in sleep." But this is not philosophical. The earth is round; therefore the rationalists merged the poet's hyperbole into the more undeniable theorem: "Now half the world is locked in sleep." The Presbyterian (Old School) Collection of hymns has stumbled at the simple line of Watts, concerning that sound which "Bid the new-made heavens go round." This line is not true. It falsifies the Copernican system. The "heavens" do not go round. Hence that Collection has reduced the poetry of the line to accurate astronomy, thus: "That bid the new-made world go round." On the same principle, the Hymn of Watts: "Once more, my soul, the rising day," is changed from an expression of lively praise, "To Him that rolls the skies," into the more philosophical dictum: "To Him that rules the skies." In another instance, however, a scientific line is metamorphosed by the same Presbyterian Collection into the freer poetical form; the poet wrote: "How most exact is nature's frame;" the critic has preferred to write: "How fair and beauteous nature's frame." The 65th Psalm of Watts affirms that sailors are especially affrighted "When tempests rage, and billows roar, At dreadful distance from the shore." It has been objected that the further off from the shore the sailors are in a tempest, so much the safer are they. But, however this may be in prose, it is not so in poetry. A favorite hymn asserts: "Fire ascending seeks the sun." This is not the fact in midnight prose; but shall we therefore qualify the poetic assertion? If a hymn leaves a decidedly erroneous impression, and is adapted to deprave the moral sentiment by its false doctrine, it should be either omitted or amended. Truth is more essential than poetry. An injurious influence is worse than a prosaic expression. If, however, the hymn does not inculcate an unsound doctrine by its unscientific style; if it merely employ a less technical, or more indirect, or ambiguous phrase, than is demanded by a precise theology, the uses of the hymn require that the old form be retained for the explanation of a didactic hour, rather than that the flow of song be checked by a rigid analytic emendation. We query whether the Presbyterian Old School Manual (Hymn 549,) has at all heightened the moral excellence of Mrs. Steele's stanza, by translating the affectionate words: ""Tis thine, Almighty Saviour, thine, To form the heart anew," into the more accurate language: ""Tis thine, Eternal Spirit, thine," etc. On the other hand, the Connecticut Hymn Book, Hymn 86, has made a more healthful impres sion by describing the divine goodness as "unceasing," than was made by Doddridge, who represents it as "redundant." While all poetry shrinks from the cold argumentative methods of science, lyrical poetry urges a peculiar demand for the lively, impassioned, stirring diction. In the present state of hymnology, we cannot look for a strict adherence to the rules; still, the rules are admirable which are thus laid down in the Preface to the Church Psalmody (p. vi.): "Sentences and clauses should contain, as far as is practicable without occasioning a stiff and tedious uniformity, complete sense in themselves. A succession of clauses bound together by weak connectives, exhausts the performer, by allowing no opportunity for pausing; while, by multiplying unmeaning words, and keeping the mind too long on the same course, it also wearies the hearer. It contributes greatly to the spirit and force of the hymn, as well as to the ease of the performer, to throw off rapidly, in a concise form, one thought after another, each complete in itself, and with each beginning a new rhetorical clause. The structure of each stanza should be such that the mind shall perceive the meaning immediately. All hypothetical clauses, placed at the beginning, or other clauses containing positions or arguments having reference to some conclusion which is to follow, are to be avoided. They contain no meaning in themselves, and bring nothing before the mind expressive or productive of feeling, till the performer reaches the important words at the close of perhaps the second or fourth line. The only method of wading through such lines, set to music, is for the performer to suspend all thought and feeling, and struggle hard and patiently, till he shall come to the light. The first word should, if possible,fexpress something in itself, and every word should add to it. But, from a spirited clause at the beginning, the mind may derive an impulse which shall carry it through a heavy one that may follow. Clauses, however, which follow the main one, to qualify it, connected by a relative, are always heavy and injurious." In all our hymn books we can discover many violations of this rule. Prof. B. B. Edwards has cited the following violation, in a manual which is remarkably free from this species of fault.1 "The 15th Psalm, 2d part of the Church Psalmody, furnishes a specimen of the complex [structure of hymns]. In the second stanza begins a protasis, and the fifth stanza 1 Writings of Prof. B. B. Edwards, with a Memoir, pp. 143, 144. VOL. XVII. No. 65. 17 |