"O Love Divine, how sweet thou art" (words by Charles Wesley; tune "Cornwall" by S S Wesley)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Words for this wonderful hymn - followed by some thoughts on both words and tune - can be found below. Do join in singing at home!
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NEH 424 O Love Divine, how sweet thou art
1. O Love divine, how sweet thou art!
When shall I find my longing heart
All taken up by thee?
I thirst, I faint and die to prove
The greatness of redeeming love,
The love of Christ to me.
2. Stronger his love than death or hell;
Its riches are unsearchable:
The first-born sons of light
Desire in vain its depth to see;
They cannot reach the mystery,
The length and breadth and height.
3. God only knows the love of God;
O that it now were shed abroad
In this poor stony heart!
For love I sigh, for love I pine;
This only portion, Lord, be mine,
Be mine this better part.
4. For ever would I take my seat
With Mary at the Master's feet:
Be this my happy choice;
My only care, delight, and bliss,
My joy, my heaven on earth, be this,
To hear the Bridegroom's voice.
Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876) was the grandson of Charles Wesley (1707-1788).
S S Wesley's father (1766-1837) was also named "Samuel Sebastian", but to avoid confusion (!!) is usually referred to as simply "Samuel" Wesley.
These dates don't seem to make sense until you discover that Charles didn't get married until he was 42. In 1749, he married Sarah Gwynne (1726-1822), who was 19 years younger than him. So he was 59 when his son Samuel was born.
Samuel Wesley himself had an interesting life, especially in his marital relationships. And he himself was 44 when the son he named after himself was born.
It is perhaps fanciful to imagine the voice of his grandfather Charles (whom of course SSW never met in life) speaking down the generations, saying "Write me a fine tune for my hymn, would you, Seb?" And in fact, when Seb did write the tune "Cornwall" it was for a different Charles Wesley hymn. The tune first appeared in the 1872 collection "The European Psalmist", paired with "Thou God of glorious majesty", a much less optimistic composition, whose first two verses run thus:
1. Thou God of glorious majesty,
To thee, against myself, to thee,
A worm of earth, I cry;
An half-awaken'd child of man,
An heir of endless bliss or pain,
A sinner born to die!
2. Lo! on a narrow neck of land,
’Twixt two unbounded seas I stand,
Secure, insensible;
A point of time, a moment’s space,
Removes me to that heavenly place,
Or shuts me up in hell.
The tune "Cornwall", with its yearning shifts of modality that are resolved in a final line of optimism, seems to me much better suited to "O love divine, how sweet Thou art".
But you can listen, and sing, and make your own mind up!