Hymn: The day thou gavest … ...
SusanDoris
Shipmate
The words of this hymn just popped into my head on Wednesday - I don't know why! Perhaps it was something I heard on the radio, but I think it is more likely that I was sighing at the end of another day unable to get out. Yes, the sun has been shining and there is a quiet road just round the corner where I could venture out and manage to stay away from people, but it is so hard to cope with the sun and I have to concentrate so hard when going from a bright sunny area into contrasting dark shade, that it is better to march up and down my back room here for 15 minutes, timed by Alexa!
Be that as it may, I immediately went on to consider the words starting, surprise, surprise,
with the first verse. I am not here to be confrontational, but to ask how you consider the words and the music. The music is in a major key, in 6/8 time, all of which fits a melody that goes sort of straight to an emotional response. It has a calming effect. However, the words I do, of course quibble with!
First line (using the words I was accustomed to when in the choir):
The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended
I doubt if anyone here actually takes that as factual, as we all know that scientists have the physics as right as far as is possible, so given by the Lord is metaphorical.
I'll stop there and wait for responses before continuing. I do hope this OP will be of interest.
Be that as it may, I immediately went on to consider the words starting, surprise, surprise,
First line (using the words I was accustomed to when in the choir):
The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended
I doubt if anyone here actually takes that as factual, as we all know that scientists have the physics as right as far as is possible, so given by the Lord is metaphorical.
I'll stop there and wait for responses before continuing. I do hope this OP will be of interest.
Comments
As o'er each continent and island
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.
The sun that bids us rest is waking
Our brethren 'neath the western sky,
And hour by hour fresh lips are making
Thy wondrous doings heard on high.
I think it is indeed still sung quite often these days - it's a good one for Evensong! - and IMHO it's not particularly sentimental, but, rather, encouraging.
YMMV, of course.
Ahem.
'The day thou gavest' was one of My Old Mum's favourite hymns, so when I hear (or sing) it, I think of her.
I take it as factual that the Lord has given us the day, and I also fully accept what we know from physics. I fail to see how the two are the least bit at odds with one another.
Ah, well, that is probably because your old mum was, like me, a 1940s/50s girl!
(Hope I’ve quoted correctly.)
just veryi midly
Not exactly 40s/50s! Her dates are 1912-2004. In her Yoof she sang in her local village church choir, at Mattins, and at Evensong, every Sunday, and their Rector was a musical man. He later became Precentor at the Cathedral, and was a friend of the composer Elgar (My Old Mum remembered Elgar as a rather irascible elderly gent, who occasionally conducted their choir practice!).
I've been thinking a bit more about the music too and I wonder whether the lilting 6/8 rhythm makes it into something of a lullaby! Appropriate for evening, and perhaps that's another reason to hum the tune in these days of increasing concern over the virus.
I have also googled 'original music' but it seems that Arthur Sullivan's is the only one offered. 'St Clement's is referred to but no success there. The use of 'thee' and 'thou' also softens the sound; 'you' just doesn't work in the same way.
It's a good tune and good lyrics.
The World Day of Prayer was formerly limited to participation by Christian women. In recent years it has been opened up to all Christians irrespective of gender.
One male infant, slumbering deeply- check...
Well, IMHO, there's many: that I am here, alive and relatively healthy, even though death will come to me in someway at sometime; that the sun is shining right now and there are more goldfinches at the feeder than ports for them to get to the seed; that the pain in my leg after a minor fall last week is easing; that husband is doing the laundry I'd planned to do; Oh, I could go on and on. Others might credit all that to some force, some habit, some need. For me, it is a wondrous doing of God. No one else needs to agree or affirm, that is just my belief. My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
I have a long standing practice that each morning, after using the loo, I splash water on my face -- cold water usually -- and with water dripping almost like a new baptism I look myself in the eyes in the mirror and say a simple "Thank God that I am, here, now."
When my children were small, I'd sing them the 'Andy Pandy's going to sleep' song!
I won't provide a linky, on account of copyright, but we've used it at an Advent Sunday evening liturgy.
For what it's worth DH Lawrence said the same thing ...
Quite whether you take "The Day" as being the mechanical day, or the events in your day is kind of flexible, although "The darkness falls at thy behest", is mechanical (although the relatively modern author was almost certainly well aware of the direct mechanics, I wouldn't say metaphor, but not sure what I would say).
In "Abide with me", the author isn't. It's not really an Evensong song, although the resonances obviously work better there. There the night is arguably a metaphor.
“Abide with Me” doesn’t seem to get used at funerals that often here, though I’ve made a mental note that my mother-in-law likes it would like it at her funeral.
"We thank thee that thy church, unsleeping'
"and
""But stand and rule and grow for ever"
This would have applied strongly in the 19th century and, really, still applied strongly when I was a child. That has changed, though, hasn't it? For instance, I think the automatic right of Bishops to sit in the HoL is well on the way out and wil become a fact. Whether or not it will happen before I die, I think it is right that this should be so. I think too, though, that it should be done in an orderly, quiet, undramatic way and would express concern if it was achieved with anger instead of as an inevitability. (I was going to say, 'with logic', but am aware that there are those on SoF with a knowledge of Philosophy that I do not have!) .
The original line about God’s kingdom in the last verse is ‘thy kingdom stands, and grows for ever’ but even in the modernised version it is nothing at all to do with bishops in the House of Lords, nor even directly the Church - it is about the growth of God’s rule in the world. That seems to me to be a wholly different thing from the question of whose hands may or may not be on the levers of power.
While the hymn remains, as, yes, pleasant background music in my head at the moment, I have attempted to update the words! But that is a task I simply cannot do!
The music is in a Major key, depending on which tune you use. The tune St. Clement, possibly the most popular of tunes set to these words, is in a Major Key but is in 3/4 time not 6/8 - and they are not the same thing!!!
However, in the 1906 version of English Hymnal and those re-prints in 1933 and 1976 'The day thou gavest' is set to the tune Les Commandemens De Dieu a tune originating in a Genevan Psalter of 1543 and possibly composed but certainly adapted by Bourgeois. St Clement is to be found in the Appendix (No. 16) named by Vaughan Williams as his 'Chamber of Horrors'. Les Commandemens De Dieu is in a Major key but alternates between 3 time and 4 time. By the time the 1984 'New English Hymnal' appears St Clement has taken over from Les Commandemens De Dieu which is used to a setting of words by F. Bland Tucker.
The title might suggest it was original the tune for the Genevan version, in French, of the 10 Commandments. Does anyone know?
I agree with those Shipmates who think @SusanDoris is finding political and imperial resonances that aren't in the original. Earth's proud empires are clearly seen as passing away and whatever one might think about House of Lords reform, it's a red herring as far as The day thou gavest is concerned.
A printed score ( https://hymnary.org/tune/wenn_wir_in_hochsten_noten_bourgeois ) shows it as 9 8 9 8.