Typing, it struck me the question might be rhetorical. But I love Remonstrans and I love Dissidens and I have not shown myself to be the #1 minion and sychophant around here (or been drubbed for making stupid comments, for that matter) as much as my vanity might require, so I'll just blab with enthusiasm.

The last stanza isn't of a piece with the rest of the poem.

One reason it sticks out is that it switches from the corporate to the personal. Another reason is that the quality of the poetry suddenly takes a dive (not that the quality was stellar to begin with, but as the last stanza shows, it can be worse) and all of a sudden you have not the right words in the right order but the kind of words that help him pad his meter out and rather than a mastery of the rhyme scheme, a tyranny as dead words and and and repetitive phrases do service. In other words: lazy poetry. You can also notice this when you run into cliches like full'nboundless that suddenly expose a seam of cliches that might have been given the benefit of the doubt if they didn't come so thick'nfast: fullness he is pouring, love'npower, without measure, and yield myself to Thee--which the unanticipated Thee gives away. These are sometimes hard things to judge in a poem that is not contemporary, but it seems to me the weight of them causeth them to start sliding into the copious bucket of cliche. It should have been evident by "need is meeting" and "does direct" that the quality of thought going into the poem and the mastery of language has altered. It is sad how it changes the rest of the poem when you go back and read it, how "His love accepting," that might have been accepted before goes very flat, how "deep and wide" becomes deep'nwide, and so on.

The solution to some of it is to spend years studying poetry, attempting poetry, learning what it is about poetry that concerns poets, how to master meter so that you don't have doggerel, how to master rhyme (vocabulary) so that it does not tyrannize the meaning of the poem. In short: to spend a whole lifetime working toward one worthwhile contribution or two to the hymnody of the church, or at least spending a lifetime so that you can appreciate the riches of what is otherwise being neglected.

There is no seriousness about poetry, in other words, in the last stanza---which is curious since apparently the last two stanzas were added by the same chap, but I think the quality of the third holds up inspite of the first line . . . though "ever all our days" now stands out as a bit of sham fervency, and "lives be" . . . why not more vivid (vivid!) lives live? But that is another bad sign: when the quality starts dissoving upon examination, rather than growing, that's not good. It is an adornment for things this person doesn't really have to say. It is sentimentality in that the speaker does not care for the object spoken to, or even the speaking, more than that he is the subject speaking however badly. This is a great and common bane of attempts at poetry.

Some of the solution is to have eyes for the subject of the poem, it occurs to one.

But since I don't have the skill to repair it, only to attempt a diagnosis of sorts, I can't answer the question of its repair, other than cut out the last stanza or two!

Actually, the question wasn’t rhetorical—although it would be a great rhetorical question.

But since it was a practical question, and because I don’t want to step on any flowers, I’ll withhold immediate response and let others chime in. Please don’t interpret my silence as disapproval or irritation.

What I think might be done in this instance is something that ought to be done every time we are asked to open a hymnal. Not all criticism is dismissive and not all evaluation is destructive; criticism is as essential as creativity.

[Not a point our culture has grasped.]

I believe that stanzas three and four were written much later and by an entirely different "William." The first stanzas grew out of the Welsh revival, and their focus is God-ward. The third and fourth stanzas are much more horizontal in focus. Furthermore, the third and fourth stanzas seem to be utterly missing the metaphors that enrich the first two stanzas. Verses one and two are poetic in quality; verses three and four, although rhymed, have lost that sense.

Now, how to fix it? Drop the last two stanzas. I generally don't like poems where later authors add onto earlier authors' works. If someone were to decree that we had to fashion a new verse, though, I wonder whether a verse could be fashioned that speaks, without sentimentality, of the ordinate love we are to give to God (Deut. 6) in response to His love for us.

Having no training in poetry, I doubt I have much to add to this exercise.

However, the first two stanzas left me feeling that the Savior is still dead.

I thought when I was young---Walt Whitman had something to do with it---that the poet, painter, and musician should do nothing but express themselves. When laboratories, pulpits, and newspapers had imposed themselves in the place of tradition the thought was our protection. It may be so still in the provinces, but sometimes when the provinces are out of earshot I may speak the truth. A poet is justified not by the expression of himself, but by the public he finds or creates; a public made by others ready to his hand if he is a mere popular poet, but a new public, a new form of life, if he is a man of genius.

I do hope at the conclusion of this exercise, those more skilled would properly critique the poem for the learning of the rest of us.

That being said, the primary metaphor of God's love as expansive as an ocean is both overused (in poetry in general) and underused (in this poem it is only referenced a few times and never well developed). If the author has seen something concerning God's love that is like an ocean, then develop that image so that we may see it as well.

We hear but lightweight rhymes and mere prose with jagged edges scotch taped into an amusing mosaic of pretty trinkets. Though His love an ocean vast, the poetry left my feet still dry on sandy beach.

In fairness to the author of the original first two stanzas (if google did not lead me astray), those aren't his words we're reading. Evaluating translated poetry as a window into the author's talent or intent is pretty iffy.

I heard an interview on NPR last night with the 97 year old granddaughter of Sholom Aleichem. She took her mom to see Fiddler on the Roof when it opened in New York and the mother hated it. "That's not Papa's work," the mother told her daughter. She (the granddaughter) explained that it was "the American version."

But even with all that, there's a difference between the first two and last two stanzas that's, well, vast as an ocean.

Watchman makes a good point, I think, about the difficulty of translating poetry. There are few Catherine Winkworths, and I've often thought that she must have been as good a poet as those whom she translated.

I am assuming that verses 3-4 were actually written in English rather than Welsh. Does anyone know?

If cyberhymnal is to be believed, all four verses were written in Welsh, but by two different people.

The theology seems different in the last verse, as though it were written during the decline of some great movement that produced the first verse.

A True Hymn

My Joy, my Life, my Crown!
My heart was meaning all the day,
Somewhat it fain would say,
And still it runneth muttering up and down
With only this, My Joy, my Life, my Crown!

Yet slight not those few words;
If truly said, they may take part
Among the best in art:
The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords
Is, when the soul unto the lines accord.

He who craves all the mind,
And all the soul, and strength, and time,
If the words only rhyme,
Justly complains that somewhat is behind
To make His verse, or write a hymn in kind.

Whereas if the heart be moved,
Although the verse be somewhat scant,
God doth supply the want;
As when the heart says, sighing to be approved,
“O, could I love!” and stops, God writeth, “Loved.”

"Some have been alarmed to read that there is art in our worship. They should not feel anxious: art is a good and natural thing. It is as natural to find art in man as it is to find a river in a valley..."

Yes, art is "natural to man" - I think this is the problem some people have with it. It depends how you understand human sinfulness, I suppose, but I know many who feel that anything natural is therefore sinful - the phrase "good and natural" is an oxymoron to them. I don't know how they justify speech and walking and other natural powers.

I think it's worth pointing out that what is truly natural is therefore gracious. That is, our human nature is given to us by God and it is made what it is by the impress of the image of the Word and the inbreathing of the Spirit. Despite the fact that we are born with it, sin is still just the dying of nature, and not nature itself. (The simple fact of how commonly people hear the phrase "our sin nature" makes this very, very confusing for them.)

Which means that any natural power (including human art) can be purified and revived through Christ and returned to its original sphere. (This actually happened in Christian history.) And the original sphere of every natural human power is the adoration of God.

Of course, some people simply feel that the definition of art is something high-toned, and that it therefore excludes them. The ignorant suffer most.

Josh and I feel that what you are saying here is really, really important, Dissidens. Thanks for continuing to say it.

Thanks.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights…”, and beyond that, we were commanded to praise God skillfully.

Artfully.

Apparently these people you speak of have no fear of God in their hearts.

I hope that's not true. Given the scripture you quote (and the history and word definitions, too) your conclusions should be obvious. Sometimes people get confused anyway.

But error, with its fruits (even when confusion is is to blame) does tend to eat away at important things like the fear of God.

Well, it’s true people are confused; I can’t deny that.

I, Dr. Martin Luther, wish all lovers of the unshackled art of music grace and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ! I truly desire that all Christians would love and regard as worthy the lovely gift of music, which is a precious, worthy, and costly treasure given mankind by God. The riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to discuss and describe them. . . . In summa, next to the word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in this world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits. . . . Our dear fathers and prophets did not desire without reason that music be always used in the churches. Hence we have so many songs and psalms. This precious gift has been given to man alone that he might thereby remind himself of the fact that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and extolling God. However, when man’s natural musical ability is whetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is, after all, His product and His gift….

A splendid passage from Dr. Luther.

I can't help the pity but perhaps the excuses are idle.

You left out the best part:

"A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs."

;)

Very true.

Quite the curmudgeon, that Marty.

Heh, yep he was. I've noticed that the "braying of asses and grunting of hogs" is precicesly what people DO ending up listening to when they stop regarding music as sacred. (It's a neat description of a lot of our contemporary music, no?) I've noticed that a neglect of the humanities does indeed make us "less human" if I can put it that way - less like the human nature of Christ, which is the true humanity, and more like the corrupt, failing existence of the first Adam. A very miserable condition.

I think it's quite usual for us to bring our own judgments on ourselves in this way, as natural consequences of our errors. This moves me to immense pity. Every morning, folks in my church pray this: "I thank you, O Holy Trinity, for through your great goodness and patience you were not angry with me, an idler and a sinner, nor have you destroyed me with mine iniquities..." Iniquities being, in this view, not only the occasion of destruction, but the agent of destruction as well. (I think it's because God is an immutable destroyer of evil, but if human beings attach themselves to evil in such a way that the evil cannot be destroyed without destroying the human being, they put themselves in the way of God's consuming fire.) Yet for a long time, God holds us back from utter destruction, making every effort to destroy our iniquities without destroying us. It's enough to melt any heart, on reflection.

But of how much greater punishment will he be thought worthy, who neglects so great a salvation? A terrifying thought.

I do think we have not given serious thought to what we mean when we call these things “humanities”.

Yes. Although that brings me back to my original point - if one conceives of humanity as bad in itself, the humanities will appear not only useless but subversive, a replacement for grace. Christ is the true Humanity, and humanity subsists in Christ. We've got to understand that, and we've got to understand what that means in terms of "good and natural" human activities.

I don't mean to downplay your point at all, Dissidens. I think you've presented us, for a number of years now, with some very fine explanations of what's going on from a cultural viewpoint. I tend to point out the theological side of that but I think they are part and parcel with one another. Dogma, as we've discovered here and elsewhere, is inneffective apart from the ability to grasp it imaginitively, and that ability is normally granted through the medium of culture and its forms.

This is why the Church embraced art in the first place, so as to nurture a full grasp of the faith within people who were not always so literate but who had a better-rounded capacity for perception bestowed by belonging to a society with fully functional moving parts. Grace is not magical, it rarely comes to us unmediated in a flash of Light and never so to the unprepared. Such grace would do us no good, because God didn't make us that way. He made us not only dependant on himself but interdependant on one another, each and all swaddled in a darkling, nourishing, mediating womb of created flesh and created spirit and created mind. God is mother and father to us, he makes and sustains us - but he sheilds us, while we are being formed, from direct contact with the Light that we cannot now bear. Why should we spurn the conditions of that mode of being, the expressions given by God to the nature of that intermediate, created existence? How else but by looking through those expressions will we begin to percieve what lies beyond, and reach for it, and ready ourselves for it?

Dear me, I've run on a lot this time around.