Bible Songs — Miscellaneous

How Much I Need Thee!

Blessed Lord, how much I need thee!

No. 1198
Tune HOW MUCH I NEED THEE!
Words F. E. B.
Music F. E. Belden.
Key G major
Time 3/4
4 stanzas

Words

Blessed Lord, how much I need thee!Weak and sinful, poor and blind;Take my trembling hand and lead me,Strength and sight in thee I find.

REFRAIN

Ev'ry hour, ev'ry hour,Blessed Lord, how much I need thee!Ev'ry hour, ev'ry hour,Saviour, keep me ev'ry hour.

Clothe me with thy robe of meekness,Stained with sin this robe of mine;Teach me first to feel my weakness,Then to plead for strength divine.

Safe am I if thou dost guide me,—Trusting self, how soon I fall!Walk life's rugged way beside me,Thou, my light, my life, my all.

Then whate'er the future bringeth,Smiles of joy, or tears of grief,Still to thee my spirit clingeth,Thou art still my soul's relief.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: no running head on this page; hymn number «1198» (large, left), title «HOW MUCH I NEED THEE!» centred (condensed capitals and small capitals, «How Much I Need Thee!»); on the line below, «F. E. B.» at the left (the words), the epigraph «"Without me ye can do nothing."—John 15 : 5.» in the centre, and «F. E. BELDEN.» at the right (the music, capitals and small capitals). No meter, no tune name other than the title, no reference line. All four stanzas are interlinear, between the staves of systems 1–2, numbered «1.»–«4.» before the first line; each printed line carries two verse lines, given here one verse line per line. «REFRAIN.» in bold capitals stands above system 3; the refrain words are printed once, one line under system 3 and one under system 4, and are sung after every stanza (written out here after stanza 1, in the order sung, and split into verse lines at the musical phrases). «Copyrighted 1886 by F. E. Belden.» is centred at the foot of the music, the folio «416» below it. Interlinear syllable divisions («Bless - ed», «what - e'er», «Ev - 'ry», «Sav - iour», …) are joined here and recorded in `lyrics_syllables.txt`. The print sets a thin space before «!» and «;» («thee !», «mine ;», «fall !»); it is closed up here; curly quotes and apostrophes are written straight. Spelling, punctuation and capitals are the print's («Saviour», «Ev'ry», «whate'er», «me,—»).