Missing Verses
If you have a large library of hymnals, and books on hymn history, as I do, or if you check a well-researched Web site such as the Cyber Hymnal, you will discover that many of the hymns we know and love have additional stanzas that are seldom, if ever, printed in today’s hymn books.
The reasons for this are varied. Sometimes, the verses omitted are of relatively poor poetic quality, or they may express a doctrinal position that is questionable. Sometimes, it is a bow to contemporary culture–because most congregations today would be unwilling to sing eight or ten stanzas. (Often three or four seem to tax us!) Many times, however, it seems to be simply a matter of space and keeping hymn books from becoming unmanageably large.
That being said, there are some unsung treasures in the missing stanzas of our hymns. It is worthwhile doing a bit of research on this. And if you are a pastor, or worship leader, you may be able to print a missing stanza in the bulletin, occasionally, or include it on an overhead. It will be an added blessing for all who think they already know the hymn.
Following are a few examples.
Why, for instance, would editors omit this stanza of There Shall Be Showers of Blessing which contains a key principle of application:
There shall be showers of blessing,
If we but trust and obey;
There shall be seasons refreshing,
If we let God have His way.
There is a worshipful stanza of Fairest Lord Jesus that few hymn books include:
All fairest beauty, heavenly and earthly,
Wondrously, Jesus, is found in Thee;
None can be nearer, fairer or dearer,
Than Thou, my Saviour, art to me.
Several hymn books I’ve seen leave out the following insightful stanza of More Love to Thee. The author of the song, a bedridden invalid, could make this statement from personal experience, and it is reminiscent of the testimony of Paul that he could glory in his infirmities (II Cor. 12:7-10):
Let sorrow do its work, come grief or pain;
Sweet are Thy messengers, sweet their refrain,
When they can sing with me: More love, O Christ, to Thee;
More love to Thee, more love to Thee!
Several stanzas of the poem that became the popular hymn, How Great Thou Art, have not been used with the hymn. Here is one that I’ve found a blessing:
When burdens press, and seem beyond endurance,
Bowed down with grief, to Him I lift my face;
And then in love He brings me sweet assurance,
“My child, for thee, sufficient is My grace.”
And here is the concluding stanza of the carol, As With Gladness Men of Old, which takes us beyond the bounds of time into eternity:
In the heavenly country bright,
Need they no created light;
Thou its Light, its Joy, its Crown,
Thou its Sun which goes not down;
There forever may we sing
Alleluias to our King!
This is an often missing stanza of I Need Thee Every Hour:
I need Thee every hour; teach me Thy will;
And Thy rich promises in me fulfil.
Being something of a traditionalist, I’m not always enthused by the modern trend to tamper with our old hymns. But from time to time I come across a change that seems helpful. Long ago, hymn writer Edward Bickersteth added this final stanza to Nearer, My God, to Thee:
There in my Father’s home, safe and at rest,
There in my Saviour’s love, perfectly blest;
Age after age to be, nearer my God to Thee.
Nearer, my God to Thee, nearer to Thee.
I encourage you to do some research of your own. You may be surprised and delighted by what you find!
16 December 2009 @ 12:16 pm
One of my favorite things to do is find lost verses of well-known hymns — and then make them known to other hymn lovers. I’ve also had former Hymnology students send me “lost verse finds” — what a blessing. My favorite multi-stanzad hymns are:
** “The Sands of Time are Sinking,” 19 verses; Samuel Rutherford’s Scripture-filled longings for Heaven
** “Soldiers of Christ Arise,” 16 verses –Charles Wesley’s expository sermon in poetry form on Eph. 6:11-18;
** “O For a Thousand Tongues,” 17 verses — Charles Wesley’s personal testimony;
** “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” 9 verses; Isaac Watts’ commentary on Psalm 90; a wonderful hymn to sing at the beginning of a new year.
** “O Worship the King,” 6 verses—Robert Grant’s commentary on Psalm 104. The 1991 Trinity Hymnal contains all 6.
In the banner of this website is the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul,” with 6 verses. I have a fifth one, but it doesn’t seem to match the words that I can see, and I’ve never seen a sixth. Would you print the full text of the other two verses?
Also, will you be doing any commentaries on Christmas carols on the blog?
17 December 2009 @ 8:15 am
Thanks for you comments Carol. Glad to hear there is someone else on the look-out for those rarely published verses! Hidden treasures! As to “It Is Well,” the following two stanzas come between the 3rd and the 4th (and final) as the hymn is most commonly printed.
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
But, Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh trump of the angel! Oh voice of the Lord!
Blessèd hope, blessèd rest of my soul!
Then comes “And Lord, haste the day…”
Regarding commentaries on Christmas carols, there are a few, scattered through the year on the daily blog. This is because the blog is not organized topically or seasonally. It is an almanac, arranged by the date of either the author’s birth, death, conversion–or occasionally the date the song was first published.
Further, I had to restrict what I said about the carols because I’ve presently got a book being published (as advertised here on the blog) that contains full articles on 63 carols, covering about 1600 years of church history. The material is now copyright, and I’d have to write completely new articles for the blog. There just isn’t time right now to do that. The publisher tried hard to get the book out for this Christmas, but it looks now as though it won’t quite make it. Anyway (small commercial here!) I encourage you to get a copy when it comes out. It will tell you about pretty much every carol in common use.
17 December 2009 @ 5:26 pm
For “As with Gladness…” Lutheran Service Book and its predecessors included the final stanza. It works well with our celebration of the Epiphany Season.
On the trivial side, I once tried matching “As with Gladness” to the John Rutter setting of “For the Beauty of the Earth.” Even though the two texts share the tune DIX in many hymnals, “As with Gladness” just doesn’t work so nicely in with the Rutter setting. It must have to do with the way he paints the text.
BTW, speaking of missing verses, I think you will find a few of those for “For the Beauty of the Earth,” if you have not already featured them.
17 December 2009 @ 6:27 pm
You indicate an important point to keep in mind when switching tunes for a hymn. It is not simply a matter of the number of beats per line of poetry. The em-PHA-sis has to be on the right syl-LA-ble. And also, the mood of the tune may relate better to one text than another.
17 December 2009 @ 7:07 pm
Yeah, that em-PHA-sis thing comes into play especially when there is an odd number of syl-LA-bles! The tune might start on the downbeat instead of the pick-up beat, and that changes everything when singing the text!
BTW, Cyberhymnal has all the verses of “For the Beauty…”
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/f/b/fbeautye.htm
One verse is Marian in nature (but not in worship to her) and another uses the peculiar phrase “For the lips of infancy.”
17 December 2009 @ 7:21 pm
Interesting stuff. I do a music seminar in which I demonstrate that switching tunes has to take these things into account. Just one suggestion, when you’re referring folks to the Cyber Hymnal, I encourage you to use the link I’ve provided here. My friend Dick Adams has worked diligently on the site for some 13 years. Over the years, I’ve had quite a bit of input as well. Then, someone came along, lifted all his material without permission, and simply set up a rival site. One characteristic of Dick’s is evident immediately. No advertising.
17 December 2009 @ 7:39 pm
Thanks for the background on Cyber Hymnal. Apparently someone else owns cyberhymnal.org. Your link goes to hymntime.com. I am sorry if your friend was robbed of his work. I just compared my bookmark of “A Mighty Fortress” from hymntime.com with the link from “For the Beauty” provided above.
No ads over at hymntime! If outright plagiarism doesn’t sell people, an ad-free website should.